Hearty Lentil Soup

Sunday night has become the official soup night in our house. Up until tonight, we have been having pea soup on repeat the last few weeks, but tonight we switched things up! We decided to make a hearty lentil soup, which has been a favorite of mine since I was a child! We served it along side grilled chicken, roasted carrots, and some crusty bread! It’s so delicious and healthy that it could actually be a meal in itself. It’s packed with flavor and we forgot just how simple it was to make!

Lentils are such an underrated legume – a fancy way to say member of the pea family! I’ve been loving lentils since I was a kid, and even now, I love buying ready-to-serve lentils from Trader Joe’s to toss into salads or as a side dish instead of rice. The possibilities are really endless! They are also a great source of fiber and protein, which makes me really thankful that my kids seem to love this soup as well!

Sometimes making soup can be intimidating because we automatically think of it as time consuming. It’s for this reason that I usually throw things together into a crock pot and let it do the work for me. But for this lentil soup recipe, we opted to use a pressure cooker, which is an appliance I avoided for way too long! My mom always loves cooking in her pressure cooker, but they always scared me (sounds silly, I know). I’ve recently decided to give it more of a try because it’s just such an awesome kitchen tool, and makes making soups like this quick and easy. We have an old school pressure cooker, but you can easily use an instant pot.

We decided to make a very large batch of the lentil soup in order to have leftovers for lunch and as a side dish for dinner throughout the week. You can even freeze the extras and defrost at your convenience. Here’s how we made it:

Ingredients:

2 packages of lentils

2 celery stalks, chopped

4 carrots, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

1 – 16 oz can of tomato sauce (we used Contadina brand)

Better than Bouillon paste

4 cups of water

4 cups of chicken broth

4 cups of vegetable broth

Olive oil for drizzling

In your pressure cooker, sauté your carrots, onions, garlic and celery in some olive oil. Next, add in the dry lentils and sauté for a few minutes until browned. Then, add in your water and broths, which should equal 12 cups of liquids total. Finally, add in the remainder of your spices, tomato sauce and bouillon. Stir well. Close the lid on the pressure cooker and cook on high until your pot starts to jingle. For my pressure cooker, that’s generally about 20 minutes. Once your pot jingles, turn your stove off and let your pot depressurize on it’s own (which will allow your soup to cook an additional 10 minutes). Remove the lid and stir occasionally until ready to serve!

This hearty soup can be made very fast – 15 minutes of prep time and 30 minutes of cooking time total. That is music to my ears for a mom like me! As I mentioned, we love adding garnishes to our soups such as bread or crackers. My kids especially love cornbread croutons in their soups. You can’t go wrong with any of that! If you decide to give it a try, please tag me on Instagram!