I make a similar point in my post about Cream of Radish Greens Soup. If you perform an internet search on “Cream of Carrot Greens Soup” you will just find a few relevant hits. But, if you search on “Soupe aux Fanes de Carottes” you will get dozens of relevant hits. And all of those links lead to recipes written in French! Why is it that the French understand how to use everything from the market in a delicious way, while in the US most people think that the greens on top of root vegetables are just for the compost? Luckily, for us on this side of the pond who don’t speak French but still want to read up on their recipes, Google Translate does a passible job of making those pages readable.
To me, carrot greens have a very interesting flavor that’s a cross between carrots and parsley. They make a uniquely flavored soup that you should definitely try. Traditionally this soup, like cream of spinach and other cream of greens soups, uses potatoes to bring body and creaminess. The potato’s neutral flavor doesn’t impinge on the flavor of the greens. An alternative is to make this a root to leaf dish and replace the potatoes with carrots. This will double down on the carrot flavor at the expense of some creaminess in texture. That’s because carrots have much less starch than potatoes. I enjoy it both ways. I don’t always have potatoes on hand when I have carrot greens on hand, but I do always have carrots when I have carrot greens on hand! One thing to note if you do use carrots instead of potatoes, carrots have a ton of pigment which will affect the color of the soup.
If you use yellow carrots, the soup will still be green, but when you mix orange and green together you end up with brown. I’ve never tried to make this soup with purple carrots. Purple carrots might actually dominant the color. Purple soup would be pretty cool!
I’m going to leave this as an ad hoc recipe. Follow the basic technique provided in my Cream of Anything Soup mother dish with these considerations: Carrot greens need to be thoroughly rinsed. They grow right next to the ground and grit gets stuck amongst the fronds. Carrot stems can be quite fibrous. Theoretically, you should be able to blend them smooth, but I cut off the main stems below the first pair of leaves, keeping the stems above that. If the carrot tops are on the scant side, you might need the greens from two bunches of carrots, but usually the tops from one bunch of carrots is enough for this soup. Pair that with about a pound of potatoes or a pound of carrot roots. For a recipe that is more to the point, you can follow what I have for Cream of Radish Greens Soup, replacing any reference to radish with carrot.
