Use the whole bag of carrots

What can I do with lots of carrots?

Roast some, make soup with the rest and keep the peelings. Honey roast carrots take 400g of a 1kg bag for tonight, a spiced carrot and lentil soup takes the other 600g for the freezer, and the peelings and ends go into a freezer container until there’s enough for stock.

Carrots: one of the five foods UK homes bin most

Carrots last for weeks in the fridge, which is why the bag gets forgotten. The last few go soft and bendy at the back of the drawer, and the peelings from the ones that did get eaten went in the bin long ago.

Peel the whole bag on one day and every part has somewhere to go. The roasting carrots and the soup share one oven and one hob, and the peelings start a container in the freezer that turns into stock once it’s full.

In a WRAP survey in June 2024, UK households named the foods they threw away most of, and carrots came fifth on the list (Resource Media, reporting WRAP). Usually it’s the part left over after the recipe you bought it for. Giving every part a recipe in the same session adds about 11 minutes of hands-on time.

One session, in order

1. Boil the kettle and heat the oven to 200°C fan.

2. Peel the whole bag. Peelings and ends go straight into the stock container.

3. Halve the roasting carrots and put them in for 20 minutes.

4. Grate the rest for the soup while they roast, and get the soup simmering.

5. Honey over the carrots for their last 10 minutes. Blend the soup, and once it’s cool, it goes in the freezer.

• Honey roast carrots Tonight’s side, for 4
• Spiced carrot and lentil soup For the freezer, 4 portions
• Scrap vegetable stock Saved in the freezer for stock

How we’d cook it, not advice. We don’t check recipes for allergens, and ingredients vary by brand, so check the label on everything you use. Prepare and cook food the way the Food Standards Agency says. Allergens and food safety

What each one adds

• +10 min Spiced carrot and lentil soup Grate the rest of the bag while the carrots roast. The soup simmers for 15 minutes.
• +1 min Scrap vegetable stock Peelings and ends go in a container in the freezer. When it’s full, make the stock.

Hands-on minutes on top of a session you’re already cooking, our estimate. Time in the oven or on the hob isn’t counted. How we work out the minutes.

More ways to use it up

What goes in the stock container

Carrot and onion peelings and ends, celery leaves and leek tops. Leave out potato peelings, which make stock cloudy, and broccoli, which makes it bitter.

More foods to use up

• Use the whole bag of potatoes
• Use the whole head of broccoli
• All five foods