Red Lentil Vegetable Soup

This red lentil vegetable soup is delicious and frugal. Perfect for picky eaters who won’t notice lentils in this soup! It’s now my favorite go-to soup since you can use almost any vegetables you have on hand. Pairs wonderfully with homemade crostini or rosemary olive oil bread.

You guys. This red lentil vegetable soup is amazing!

And it’s not because I made it OR because I love soup. Although both are true. It’s because it contains lentils and NO ONE PERSON AT THE TABLE is NOTICED!

Even my picked eater had two servings, and that my friends, is practically unheard of. And a miracle.

It’s also officially my favorite soup of all time, especially paired with Instant pot white rice or homemade crostini. Partly because it’s SO stinkin’ good, but also because of the aforementioned lentils.

This my friends, makes a big pot of soup. You’ll get leftovers for at least one or two lunches, but this recipe is PERFECT for hosting company.

Red Lentil Vegetable Soup

Feeding my family beans and legumes – without getting complaints in return – is a tall order. But I haven’t given up or anything. Cheesey Mexi Lentil Macaroni is one of the kids’ favorites (probably because it tastes similar to a Mexican-style cheeseburger helper), and the two varieties of beans in Tortilla Soup go over well too.

But’s a stalemate for most recipes beyond that. It’s not really that much fun to cook dinner and get questions at the table like:

• “Does it have beans?”
• “Is this a bean?”
• “Why are there so many beans?”

Knowing these questions will come, I dread cooking. Then that dread follows me from the kitchen to the table and dinner becomes a chore rather than quality time as a family. And then…

Red lentils entered my life and the gates of bean dread suddenly disappeared. Because this SUPER cool thing happens when you cook red lentils: They disappear.

For real! When they’re fully cooked, red lentils sorta kinda disintegrate into the soup itself, leaving behind a creamy, oh-so-tasty puree in its wake. And when you mix it up with fresh vegetables, homemade chicken stock, and a few simple herbs? It becomes the tastiest bowl of goodness you could possibly imagine.

And no one even knows it has lentils!!

Here’s What You Need

• homemade chicken stock
• red lentils
• garlic clove
• onion
• Salt & pepper
• bell pepper
• carrots
• celery
• chopped tomatoes (or one 15 oz can of diced tomatoes with juices)
• mushrooms
• green beans
• fresh spinach
• dried parsley
• tomato paste
• dried oregano
• dried basil
• rice(optional)
• cilantro (optional)

Note: Bob’s Red Mill red lentils are the most affordable at 18¢ per ounce, which literally gets the best quality for the best price.

Psst! If you’re going to add salt, I highly recommend Ava Jane’s Kitchen. You may think all salt is created equal, but unfortunately, 90% of salt produced around the world contains microplastics (gross, right?). Ava Jane’s Kitchen is an exception. Their salt is 100% microplastic free, and it’s SO GOOD! Plus, you can get a bag for just 1¢!! (Get your penny bag of salt on this page.)

How to Make Red Lentil Vegetable Soup

Step 1. Combine stock, lentils, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper in a large pot and bring to a boil.

Step 2. Meanwhile, start chopping the other vegetables and add them to the pot as they’re ready.

Step 3. When the pot reaches a boil, reduce it to a simmer.

Step 4. Finish chopping all the vegetables and add them to the pot. Add the tomato paste and dried herbs and cover the pot, stirring every 10-20 minutes or so until the lentils have broken down 60-90 minutes.

Note: This is a thick soup, but there should be about 1/2″ liquid covering the vegetables at all times, so add additional stock as needed.

Recipe Notes

As if the fact that YOU’RE FEEDING YOUR FAMILY LENTILS AND THEY’RE NOT COMPLAINING isn’t awesome enough as it is, this meal can be made in the slow cooker OR even frozen for a super-quick meal later on:

• Slow Cooker Version: Dump all ingredients in the slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or until the lentils are cooked through and very soft.
• Freezer Meal Version: Dump all ingredients raw into a gallon-sized freezer-safe bag. Lay flat and press the air out. Freeze horizontally, then stack vertically to save freezer space. To prepare, dump contents into a large pot OR a slow cooker and cook according to directions.

More Tips

• Adding 2 cups of shredded chicken makes this a non-vegetarian meal (if you need to appease the meat and potato folks in the family), but my favorite version (and the most frugal option) is to serve over hot rice. Although if you happen to have leftover noodles or other grains in the fridge, feel free to serve them with this soup!
• If you don’t have all the vegetables in this recipe, no worries – substitute with whatever you happened to have on hand. Add zucchini if it’s summer, butternut squash in the fall, sweet potato in the winter, and asparagus in the summer. Seriously, add whatever you have because it’s really the red lentils that make this recipe rock!

Tip: When you make the soup, make a double batch while you’re chopping so you have a quick and easy dinner later on! Then immediately add it to your recipe rotation. Yes, it’s that good!

FAQs

To Serve

This soup is amazing when it’s fresh out of the pot but somehow becomes super amazing the next day.

Serve this with:

• hot rice
• pasta noodles
• as-is, with optional cilantro as garnish

Add some freshly baked bread (Man Bread, Rosemary Olive Oil Bread, or even No-knead Artisan Bread would be great), with butter and you’ve got a meal. You could even add those 2 cups of chicken if you had it too, but don’t stress out if you don’t. This Red Lentil Vegetable Soup is awesome enough without it!

More Soup Recipes

• Instant Pot White Bean and Sausage Soup
• Curried Butternut Squash Soup
• Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup
• Slow Cooker Mexican Potato Soup