Homemade Red Lentil Soup

I was so enamoured by the delicious Middle Eastern lentil soup that I had from The Little House of Kebobs that I actually wanted to buy an extra portion to take home for my mom to enjoy.  But as the FreshCo supermarket was right next door and I had extra time with no transcripts on the horizon, I decided to make lentil soup that evening!

A simple Google search showed me a variety of different lentil soup recipes.  I was looking for the easiest one. 

I’m blogging about this lentil soup recipe so that I’ll always have it in my blog archives and don’t have to Google the recipe because I’ve now attempted this one and it was so easy to make.  (For reference, I found this Middle Eastern Lentil Soup recipe on BBC Goodfood.)

You need a bag of dry red lentils (they look like salmon-coloured pearls in a bag), cumin, turmeric, onions, garlic, vegetable or chicken stock, and carrots (optional but why not to include more veggies).  Parsley and lemon juice are optional.

Middle Eastern Lentil Soup recipe on BBC Goodfood

The original recipe wasn’t big enough for my use, so I doubled it up.  The portion I ended up making can serve 4 to 6.

I used 3 cups of red lentils

First, soak the 3 cups of red lentils in cold water.  Apparently, this is so that it’s easier to cook and also easier for the body to digest.  (Soak the lentils as you’re chopping up the vegetables to save time.)

Make sure you cut and chop everything first before starting the stove (I learned this the hard way) but having everything ready will ensure that your carrots and onions are not overly cooked.   In terms of what needs to be chopped, these would be the garlic, carrots, and onions.

Soak lentils, cut up vegetables, throw it all in a pan

Anyway, 1) heat oil in a pan and fry the chopped onions and chopped carrots for five minutes to soften them.

2) After that, add the chopped garlic, turmeric, and cumin into the pan and continue cooking for a few more minutes.

3) Stir in the lentils, vegetable or chicken stock (I had 2 cartons of vegetable and chicken stock) and cook for 35 minutes.  Stir every so often to prevent the lentils from sticking to the base of the pan.

And that’s pretty much it!  By the time the 30 minutes is up, you’ll see that the stock has mostly evaporated and that the lentils will be mushy and concentrated.

Thick hearty homemade vegetable soup

The recipe says you can toss in parsley and lemon juice and cook for two more minutes, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Your house will smell so delicious too during the entire cooking process from all the garlic and cumin.

We ended up with a huge vat of healthy lentil soup which we enjoyed that night (forgot to take a picture of the final product in the pan) and which my husband took for work the next day as lunch.  It was so good!  We still have a big bag of the lentils in the pantry and so we can make this whenever we want again.  It’s so easy (it practically cooks itself), and that’s coming from someone who barely cooks. 😀  Enjoy!