Description
Explore our top 100 vegan recipes—chef-crafted, flavorful, and reader-approved. Whether you simply want to include more plants in your life, incorporate more vegan meals into your week, or fully embrace the vegan diet, I hope that these recipes will show you how easy and approachable vegan cooking can be, without sacrificing flavor: Easy Red Lentil Soup
Ingredients
Units
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, diced
- 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 2 cups carrots, diced
- 1 celery stalk, sliced optional
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, more to taste ( see notes)
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 medium tomato, diced
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, or red paprika (not smoked)
- 1 cup red lentils
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup water
- Generous pinch cayenne pepper
- Large squeeze of fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat, add the onion and garlic, and stir for 3-4 minutes, until fragrant, then lower heat to medium, add carrots, celery, salt, and pepper, and saute for 7 minutes. Add the tomatoes and spices and saute for 2-3 minutes.
- Pour in the lentils, broth and water. Increase to medium-high heat, bring to a boil, cover, and lower heat to a gentle simmer for 20 minutes or until lentils are cooked through.
- Using an immersion blender, partly puree the soup- leaving a little texture. (Or blend half of the soup in the blender.) *If you prefer a thinner soup, add more broth or liquid to desired consistency, seasoning as necessary.
- Squeeze with ½ the lemon and a pinch of cayenne. Taste, adjusting salt, lemon juice and cayenne to taste. *If you use water instead of broth, you’ll need another ¾-1 teaspoon of salt. The soup will start to taste more flavorful as it cools down a bit. If it tastes bland, find the balance between salt and lemon, adding more to taste. Cayenne is nice too.
- Divide among bowls, drizzle with good olive oil, fresh herbs, Aleppo chili flakes or a sprinkling of sumac.
Notes
One vegan meal I always try to have on hand is this lentil soup recipe! It’s fast, wholesome, hearty, and delicious. See Full Recipe here: Red Lentil Soup
Optional Garnishes – a drizzle of olive oil, fresh herbs: parsley, cilantro or mint, microgreens, chopped tomatoes, Aleppo Chili flakes, Urfa Biber, or a sprinkle of sumac.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 200
- Sugar: 5.1 g
- Sodium: 608 mg
- Fat: 6.4 g
- Saturated Fat: 0.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 30.3 g
- Fiber: 5.4 g
- Protein: 8.5 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg