My wife found an amazing recipe for a lentil soup a while back. She was working late today, so I cooked the soup while she drove home.
It’s pretty simple. Onions, garlic, peppers (I used a bell pepper) in oil. Add lentils, broth, chickpeas, and canned tomatoes. Season and simmer for 20 minutes.
It’s SO FLAVORFUL!
Usually with soups, there’s a mix of spices – and frequently, when I taste it, I say “Hmm, still needs something.”
This one gets a mere sprinkle of salt and pepper, and it’s great.
Apologies for the lack of photo; I didn’t think to take one while cooking. FauxPseudo’s post today made me think about sharing just now.
I like to add a bit of Vinegar(a tea spoon) in my lentil soup.
Try some fresh squeezed lemon juice and a sprinkle of sumac on top
Ooh, great idea! I’m not sure offhand where to get sumac. I don’t recall seeing it at Aldi. But lemon juice is definitely worth a try for this soup.
Health food store, middle eastern grocery store or even Amazon.
Usually with soups, there’s a mix of spices – and frequently, when I taste it, I say “Hmm, still needs something.”
Ever tried dal? In its most basic form, you just cook split lentils until they disintegrate, and then add some salt, pepper, oil, whatever.
I’m always surprised with that as well, how flavorful it is. It sounds so bland, but really isn’t.
Just in case that helps explain where the flavor comes from. 😅
It’s crazy how red lentils with salt and pepper are so delicious, but then there’s a whole universe of other flavours you can add on too
Ever tried dal?
Yes, and I have to confess that it’s probably my least favorite Indian dish. But this thread is making me think I should give it another try – the soup I made last night is basically a dal, isn’t it?
It also makes me think I should explore more lentil recipes!
the soup I made last night is basically a dal, isn’t it?
Yeah, I do believe so. 😅
Dal is just the term for split legumes, so it’s pretty much like the “lentil” in “lentil soup”. The dishes will generally be creamy, because that’s what the split variants are good for. Well, and spices will likely be involved, because Indian/Pakistani cuisine. But otherwise, I don’t think you can really narrow it down.
For example, the German Wikipedia lists this as a widely-known example of a dal dish, which looks quite different from my description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chana_masala
I used the term quite loosely there, because I do think, it’s a good entrypoint for looking up more recipes…
sounds great, I’ll try it! Which lentils though?
I used red lentils. The ones we have are pre split.
We’ve used green lentils before. I recall pre-soaking them at some point, but then we started getting the red lentils.
Yum! The peppers are new for me here, but lentil soup is hard to mess up totally.
I usually use green lentils for chunky stews to get that hearty earthy flavour. But red lentils are op for basically any use.
The recipe technically calls for a chili pepper of some sort, but we usually sub in a bell pepper.
