Red Lentil Soup Recipe (Vegetarian) 🌿
In effort to be healthier and eat out less, I’ve been cooking more at home. It’s easy to get in the rut of cooking the same things over and over, so I decided to tackle one of my all time restaurant favorites: lentil soup. I’ve never made this at home, so I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I’m excited to say it turned out great! This vegetarian recipe is packed with protein thanks to the red lentils. Below is the recipe I use for how to make lentil soup.
Ingredients
- 1 cup red lentils
- 1 shallot
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 carrot
- 1 tsp cumin
- 32 oz vegetable stock
- 1-2 cups water
- 1/2 lemon
- Salt
- Pepper
- Red pepper flakes
- Olive oil
Instructions
- Add a few glugs of olive oil to a pot of your choice. (Mine is 5 qts and was more than large enough.) Soften the shallots on medium heat.
- Add the bay leaves, cumin, tomato paste & carrot. Salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle in some red pepper flakes for added heat.
- Cook for a couple of minutes before adding the washed and sorted lentils, vegetable stock and water.* Simmer for 30ish minutes until the lentils are soft.
- Blend the soup to the desired consistency with an immersion blender or regular blender. Take the soup off the heat and add in the juice of 1/2 a lemon. Taste the soup and add any additional lemon juice, salt, pepper, etc.
- Ladle into your dishes and top with a drizzle of olive oil and dash of red pepper flakes before serving.
*2 cups of water gave me a soup with a thinner consistency than I wanted, so if you like thicker soup, try starting with only the vegetable stock, 1 cup of water, or cook a little longer.
