Red Lentil Soup Recipe: Easy Homemade Lentil Soup

Name: Red Lentil Soup Recipe: Easy Homemade Lentil Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: Middle Eastern
Ingredients: Red lentils 1 cup; Olive oil 2 tbsp; Onion 1; Garlic 1-2 cloves; Celery stalks 1 stalk; Tomatoes 2-3; Fresh herbs (parsley, mint, basil) to taste; Sour milk or sour cream to taste; Salt, bay leaf, black pepper, cumin, lemon, 1 dried chili pod to taste

When the first autumn cold arrives, we always make a warming homemade lentil soup. Depending on the mood, it's cooked in different ways, with or without meat, but always with red lentils and a pinch of coarsely ground dried chili.

Lentils are a remarkable legume, known since deep antiquity, from the days when people still made tools of stone instead of metal. They thrive in a dry climate and are still among the most valuable foods, especially in Asia Minor and the Middle East. Only one species is eaten, the common lentil. Curiously, optical lenses got their name from their resemblance to the lentil, which is called lens in Latin.

Lentils are an important source of protein that can even partly replace meat, which matters to vegetarians and to anyone who avoids meat for any reason. Lentil soup is made in countless ways around the world. Very often lentils are combined in soups with other readily available grains, such as rice, bulgur (an excellent grain for tabbouleh), millet and so on. In Turkey there is a colorful, thick lentil soup called ezogelin (Ezo gelin, “Ezo the Bride's soup”), made with a rich meat broth, red lentils, bulgur, fried onion and garlic, and various seasonings.

Notably, vegetarian lentil soup is a very budget-friendly dish, and on top of that it's extremely simple to make, although it takes a while. The soup is very filling, like most soups made from well-cooked grains, for example white bean soup. By and large, the method is similar to that of ordinary split pea soup.

Red lentils, or rather the grain made of orange-colored cotyledons, come in different sizes, though most varieties have small seeds. Unlike green lentils, red ones are hulled, that is, their outer skins are removed.

Lentil soup is a simple, accessible first course that fills you up and warms you well. Red lentils are inexpensive and cook down easily, so you can get a soup of almost any thickness. If you like, make it vegetarian, or enrich it with meat or chicken, or cook it in a meat broth.

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Ingredients

4 servings

Red lentils 1 cup
Olive oil 2 tbsp
Onion 1
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Celery stalks 1 stalk
Tomatoes 2-3
Fresh herbs (parsley, mint, basil) to taste
Sour milk or sour cream to taste
Salt, bay leaf, black pepper, cumin, lemon, 1 dried chili pod to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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For the soup you need one large onion or two small ones, celery stalks, garlic and a few very ripe tomatoes.
Red lentils, they say, don't need soaking. But it depends on the variety you use. In any case, it's better to rinse the lentils and soak them in cold water for a few hours. First, it won't hurt. Second, they will cook down better. And third, the water washes out everything unwanted.
Depending on the variety, lentils take from 15 mins to 1 hour to cook through. Either way, go by how done they are and taste them. Note that the soup will be tastier the better the lentils are cooked and the more evenly they are puréed.
To make the soup, first fry the vegetables. In a saucepan, or right in the soup pot, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil. Peel the large onion and chop it finely. Fry the onion in the olive oil until a pleasant golden color, without letting it brown.
Add the finely chopped garlic, the roughly chopped celery with its leaves, and 1-2 bay leaves to the onion. Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of cumin and 2-3 black peppercorns, ground together in a mortar. Simmer covered over low heat for 5 mins.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and rinse them with cold water. Peel the tomatoes and remove the seeds, then chop the flesh very finely with a knife. Add the tomato flesh to the saucepan and simmer for 2-3 mins.
Pour 1 l of cold water into the pot and add the soaked red lentils. As soon as the water boils, add all the vegetables stewed in the saucepan. Bring the soup to a boil and reduce the heat.
Then, depending on the variety of lentils, cook until they are completely soft. Cooking can take quite a while. Don't rush it by turning up the heat. Stir the soup from time to time, since lentils tend to settle and stick to the bottom of the pot.
Once the lentils are fully cooked and starting to fall apart into a mush, pour the liquid off into a cup, discard the bay leaf and purée all the cooked ingredients. You can do this any way you like. The easiest is to blend everything until smooth with a blender.
Pour the lentil purée back into the pot and set it over low heat. The soup should be thick. If you prefer it thinner, thin the purée with the liquid you set aside. And if the lentils have cooked down well, you can skip the puréeing and leave everything as it is. It's up to you.
Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste and add 1 tbsp of fresh lemon juice. Simmer gently for 4-5 mins.
Warm the plates or soup bowls and ladle in the soup. Sprinkle with finely chopped herbs. Parsley alone is quite enough, but the soup gets a special flavor if you add a little basil and mint. And if you have no fresh herbs, dried ones will do, added when you purée the cooked vegetables.
Serve the soup hot, adding 1 tbsp of sour milk or sour cream to each bowl and sprinkling with a pinch of coarsely ground dried chili.
Red lentil soup goes very well with toasted bread.