Lentil soup is something I believe I couldn’t live without:
I love lentils, in any shape or form. Lentil soup costs pennies and takes minutes, and tastes like a million bucks: You just can’t miss with these assertive flavors!
All my favorite flavors are in, and I make my lentil soup totally meatless, so I can enjoy it a lot more often, the vegetarian way
Scroll down for the meat lentil soup variation!
It is also very versatile: Using the exact same base, you might want to substitute other grains for the lentils, just as long as they need no soaking and don’t take longer to cook (barley, azuki, brown rice, mung, etc). Although the lentil variation is the classic go-to, I find all variations worth trying, and good occasions to explore with other highly nutritious grains.
All variations suggested below, except for the bulghur soup) are gluten-free.
Ingredients
- 2 cups green or brown lentils
- 4 cups canned crushed tomatoes
- 2 pouches Levana Nourishments Garden Vegetable
- 1∕3 cup olive oil
- Salt to taste
- 3 quarts (12 cups) water
- 2 tablespoons ground cumin
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- Ground pepper to taste
Instructions
Bring the first set of ingredients to a boil in a heavy wide-bottom pot.
Reduce the flame to medium and cook covered for 1 hour, or a little longer, until the lentils are perfectly tender and the soup looks thick and creamy. Stir in the cumin, lemon juice and ground pepper, and cook just five more minutes. Adjust the texture and seasonings. Makes a dozen ample servings.
Variations:
- Buckwheat, bulgur, teff, steel-cut oat, or millet soup
These grains take only a few minutes to cook. Proceed with the recipe just as above, substituting 2 cups of the suggested grain for the lentils, but with one change: Add them in the last 20 minutes of cooking.
- Making lentil soup with meat.
Cook 3 1/2 pounds chunks shoulder cut beef or lamb and a few meaty bones, in 4 quarts of water, in a large wide bottom pot, for 2 hours. Then proceed exactly as instructed above. The liquid in the pot is your liquid for the soup (meaning, no water as instructed in the ingredient list), and the meat will continue to cook, together with the soup ingredients.
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