Red Lentil Soup Recipe (With Video)

This transcription will have some mistakes because it is partially automated.

Hey guys, this is Heather from healthyveganrecipes.net. Today, I’m going to share my red lentil soup recipe – we are going to make a soup because I promised my best friend that I would send her my technique for making soup, because I made soup at her place before and we just kind like go into her massive awesome pantry and see what she’s got and made a soup together.

She doesn’t have very much heat going on her house during the winter so – soups are always good in the winter to warm you up. What I’m going to show you today is the technique of making soup, so that you can then go on and make whatever kind of variations you want to make.

We are going to make this red lentil soup recipe today – a simple soup, a loose soup, meaning the base is water and vegetable stock and you just have free floating vegetables, or grains, or beans – whatever you want in there.

I will post this red lentil soup recipe ay healthveganrecipes.net.

The first thing we are going to do is to start with the vegetables that I’m going to throw in there. That’s we’re getting most of the flavor for any type of dish is from the vegetables.

A basic soup is going to start being flavored with onion, often garlic and I’m going to do a bit of an Asian flavor on this one, so I’m going to put some ginger in as well. Now, normally these cooks vegetables are sautéed in some oil and I often do that on the show as well.

But, I’m trying to incorporate a bit more of my nutrition principles as suppose to just straight cooking. In the past, I’ve shown you techniques using oil but it’s a bit of a compromise. I do it because I feel like I can encourage more people to eat more vegetables, but ideally, I wouldn’t cook with oil at all.

So, that’s what we’re going to do today. What we’re going to do for a start is to chop up your onion, your garlic, your ginger, and then I also got some vegetables, so I’m going to do broccoli, zucchini that kindda look like a cucumber but it’s a zucchini, and some carrots.

One helpful tool that I was really glad to have in my kitchen is my potato scrubber, which I also use for carrots and it turns orange, but it works really well to get some of that dirt and those tough-looking stuff off the edges without peeling, because a lot of the nutrition is right close to the skin in vegetables.

Starting with the vegetables, soups basically always have an onion. It really helps in the flavor. You can use vegetable stock instead if the vegetable stock has some onion in it.

A soup is almost always start with an onion, and some garlic and I’m going to do a bit of an Asian flavor on this one, so I’m going to put some ginger in as well. The cook’s way of way in starting this of is to sauté these things in some oil, and then add you soup stock or your water and go from there.

But, I have been talking about reducing the oils that we use in out cooking over on my nutrition blog healthyeatingstartshere.com. I do sometimes sauté things with oil and I showed it in the show sometimes to encourage people in transition to get working with healthier foods, but it’s a bit of a compromise for me, I really would prefer not to use oil in cooking. So today, I’m going to show you that technique.

Other vegetables that I’m going to put in this soup are zucchini, and this one happens to look like a cucumber but its not, I promise it’s a zucchini, you can tell by the stem. I’ve got some beautiful looking broccoli and some carrots – what I use for the carrots was my potato scrubber, and it turns orange when I use it for the carrots.

It got some of the rougher-looking-bits of the carrots without having to peel it, because a lot of the nutrients in the vegetables are right close to the skin. So, I’m just going to get all these chopped-up and then we will move along with our soup.

So, I got these things chopped-up and what I’m going to do – this is a little tip that I picked up from Phil’s sister Haley, probably she didn’t even know that I noticed she did this, but she boil the water in her electric – before putting it into the pot for the soup, which is more efficient in getting the water to boil.

So, I’m going to put the water there, turn this up to get it to a boil. I’m going to throw the onions, the garlic and the ginger right into this water. Now, the reason a cook would sauté these things before putting them in, is that it works to seal in the flavor of each of these individual things and helps them to stay intact through the soup.

It’s a little bit hard to describe it – I mean, a sautéed onion is very different form a boiled onion, right? So, what this going to do is the flavors of these things are going to seep into the water as supposed to being sealed in and kind of standing on their own, they’re just going to melt into the background.

It’s kind of like a different flavor that you’re going to get but it’s still awesome. I don’t think cooking with oil is the end of the world, and if you do, just make sure to use a little bit and don’t heat it for too long. But, as I said, it is bit of a compromise in my thoughts on nutrition, so I’m going to show you an option for making it without oil today.

Now, those are going to go and you can put the lid on to minimize the energy needed to bring that to a boil. What I’m going to put in for fun, I guess, are some red lentils and you can use any type of grain, or bean, or not and you can just stick with vegetables.

These red lentils will make it more filling and substantial and what not. Those are going to go in and at the same time they want to cook for a little while. Red lentils are split in half and they actually cook pretty quickly, but they’ll take longer to cook than my broccoli, so I’m putting those in first.

If you’re doing a grain, they can take up to 45 minutes to cook, so they’ll definitely go in first. You are not going to put any salt in when you put a bean or a legume like a lentil. If you’re doing grain, I would add some salt here, but the legume, you do not want add salt when they do into cook, otherwise the outside of them will go hard and tough, it won’t cook properly, whereas with grains the opposite, they’ll actually helps the grain to cook.

So, I’m going to leave this to boil. These red lentils take about 20 to 30 minutes, I’ll probably go and leave it for 15 minutes and then I’m going to comeback and put my vegetables in and season everything.

Alright, my lentils are looking very nicely cooked in here. They actually absorbed quite bit of water so I added a little bit more. I’ve got my vegetables chopped up, I’ll throw them in. If you like carrots a little bit more cooked, you can throw them earlier because this is basically just going to be a light cook for them.

And then, I’m going to stir it up. I got that broccoli in there as well as the zucchini – things are getting a little bit full in the pot. My massive soup

pot broke in my move and I’m very disappointed about that, but that’s okay, we can make it work. There’s only Phil and I anyway - most of the time.

Those vegetable are in but I’m also going to add some kelp because I love to get sea vegetables in whenever I can. The way I do this is I use food scissors. These are some scissors that came with our knives, and Phil and I only use them for food for a very efficient way to cut certain things.

I don’t know if you can see it now, but this kelp is just very finely chopped, so you’ll barely even notice them in the soup. Kelp is very rich in minerals, particularly iodine which is good for the thyroid and its one of the things that is often neglected in our diet, sea vegetables also known as see weed.

Sea vegetable is a little bit appetizing of a word. So, vegetables, sea vegetables in there, and I’m going to add some seasoning. I’ve got some black pepper – am I really going to add this… I was thinking of putting some sugar cane in there but I’m not feeling it.

So, I was going to add another one in here, cumin, a little grounded cumin. Spices can actually help in the digestion of other foods, so lentils are much easier to digest if you have certain spices and cumin is one of the ones, turmeric is another one as well, but I don’t know, something is telling my hand not to put it in.

I also normally would put a little bit of salt in here but what I’m going to do to season this is some miso instead of salt. Miso has quite have a high salt content and it’s a fermented soy product, so it’s a very nice way to add some salts that are fermented into something else.

The things about miso is, it is a live culture and if you put it into a boiling pot of water as it boils, it would kill them. What you do is – I’m going to let this cook for, let say, another five minutes, take off the heat, let it cool a little bit and this stir in my miso.

For the fat content of this meal, I’ve been talking on the blog about whole food fat instead of oils, so I’m going to sprinkle some black sesame seeds on top.

Alright, so my soup is cooked for a little while. I’ve taken off the heat to let it cool a little bit, and then I got a spoon full of miso that I’m going to stir in here. Now, not only does it kill the live cultures but they say it doesn’t taste that good when you stir this is when it’s super-super hot and actually physically boiling.

So, just stir that in. You can also dissolve it before you stir it in. When you get it fully dissolve take a little taste to make sure you like the seasoning – very nice, very nice. I’m going to spoon some of this out, you maybe thinking that your zucchini don’t really look cooked – they were very lightly cooked because Phil and I plan to have this for lunch again tomorrow.

I like to reheat it and then the vegetables cook a little bit more, so when I first cooked it, I don’t cook them all that much. And like I said, for a little fat content, I’m just going to sprinkle some black sesame seeds on top here, and voila, soup!

I’m going to post this red lentil soup recipe as well as the basic techniques for making soup over at healthyveganrecipes.net.