Red Lentil Soup Recipe with Vegetables
This red lentil soup recipe with vegetables is a healthy, hearty, satisfying meal in a bowl. Perfect for a weeknight meal served with crusty bread.
The soup is thick, rich and flavorful – and super nutritious. Don’t miss it – it’s the best lentil soup, consistently rated in our top 5!
Lentils are a good source of soluble fiber, protein, folate, and other minerals and vitamins. The carrots, onions, celery and potato add even more nutrition.
You can adjust the flavor and spices to your taste with coriander, more cumin or even hot sauce or chili flakes. We love the lemon in the soup which gives it gives it a bright zing.
We typically serve this red lentil vegetable soup as a full meal with fresh crusty bread. And maybe a side salad. But of course you can serve smaller cups of the soup as a starter. Be careful though – it’s filling. The soup is also nice with grilled cheese on the grill. a piece of homemade naan or our panzanella salad recipe with grilled chicken.
One more thing, this healthy meal freezes well, making it a great make-ahead soup. So make a large pot of soup and enjoy it for weeks.
Shortcuts
- Throw all the vegetables in the processor for a rough chop (pulse a few times) instead of dicing them all by hand.
- Use garlic in the jar or frozen garlic cubes instead of mincing garlic cloves.
Tailor To Your Taste
Substitutes
- Substitute cilantro for the parsley. Here’s a quick 101 on Herbs: The Bare Essentials.
- Use a cup of diced tomatoes (no juice) instead of tomato paste
- Try sweet potatoes instead of carrots.
- Use chicken broth instead of vegetable broth
- You can use green lentils instead of red lentils, but the cooking time will be longer (about 45 minutes) and they won’t disintegrate and soften the way red lentils do.
Other variations
- Add 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Alter the seasonings to your taste e.g add a bay leaf, coriander or chili flakes for some heat.
- Add more broth to make it a thinner soup
- Add a splash of coconut milk
- Puree all or part of the soup with an immersion or stick blender for a creamy lentil soup.
- Omit the lemon
Make Ahead
- The red lentil soup recipe with vegetables can be frozen for a couple of months. We like to freeze it in smaller lunch-size portions.
Other hearty soup recipes you might like
All of these can either be served as starters or as meals in a bowl.
- Beef barley soup recipe
- ground beef vegetable soup recipe
- Wedding soup recipe with zest
- Sausage and bean soup
- Vegetable barley soup
- Root vegetable soup with barley
- Instant pot French onion soup
- vegetarian split pea soup
- broccoli and cauliflower soup (easy to customize)
How to make this red lentil vegetable soup
Red Lentil Soup Recipe With Vegetables
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large onion
- 3 carrots, peeled
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 potato, peeled
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (or 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder)
- 2 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin or curry powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- Optional: pinch of cayenne, chili powder and/or coriander seed
- 4 cups (946ml) vegetable stock, broth or chicken broth (1 box)
- 1 cup (237m) water
- 1 cup (200g) red lentils
- 1/2 large lemon (lemon zest and juice)
- 1/4 cup (2 oz) chopped fresh parsley or cilantro
Instructions
- PREPARE THE VEGETABLES: Dice carrots, onion, celery, potato. Shortcut: Cut vegetables into large chunks, put in food processor and pulse until roughly chopped.
- SAUTE VEGETABLES, GARLIC: In a medium-large or large pot, heat oil to medium-high heat. Add vegetables and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and sauté another minute.
- ADD SEASONINGS AND OTHER INGREDIENTS: Add tomato paste, cumin or curry powder, salt and pepper (and optional seasonings if using). Stir and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in broth, water and lentils.
- COOK: Bring the soup to a boil. Lower to medium heat or medium-low heat to simmer. Cover pot partially and cook for 30 minutes or until lentils and vegetables are tender.
- FINISH THE SOUP AND SERVE: Add lemon juice, lemon zest and parsley (or cilantro). Taste and adjust seasonings adding additional salt if needed. Serve with a drizzle of good olive oil on top and additional lemon wedges if desired.
Recipe Notes
- Substitute cilantro for the parsley. Here's a quick 101 on Herbs: The Bare Essentials.
- Use a cup of diced tomatoes (no juice) instead of tomato paste
- Use chicken broth instead of vegetable broth
- Add 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Alter the seasonings to your taste
- Add more broth to make it a thinner soup
- Puree all or part of the soup with an immersion blender
- Omit the lemon
- Red lentil and vegetable soup can be frozen for a couple of months in an airtight container. We like to freeze it in smaller lunch-size portions.
Love this recipe! I have made it three times now. I add some frozen spinach at the end. I’ve used a sweet potato once, regular potato once and no potato once. Each time, delicious! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing your tweaks/experimenting Lisa. Glad you liked the recipe.
I followed the recipe exactly and really enjoyed this soup a lot. It’s a keeper! However, I do have one little quibble. There’s no way the prep time is 7 minutes, especially if you chop the vegetables yourself (which I think is preferable to using the shortcut). So, if you make it plan on at least an hour, maybe more, with prep.
Fair enough Sharon. I always use the food processor to speed things up, but not everyone has one or wants to use it. Glad you liked the soup!
Just made the red lentil soup with Vegetables. It was absolutely delicious.
Thank you. Happy you liked it 🙂
Awesome recipe… even my 5 yo had 2 bowls of this soup. Thank you very much
Happy to hear a 5 year old liked the soup! Thanks for leaving a comment Deepshikha.
Great red lentil soup recipe. It’s a keeper!
Glad you liked it Norma!
Just made this since it’s suddenly really cold in my part of Texas and needed a hearty veggie soup. This was delicious!! Used Madras curry powder (a bit more than recipe states), Kashmiri chili powder, a pinch of ground coriander and lots of fresh cilantro (that somehow didn’t die last night in the freeze). The lemon juice and zest really gives it additional complexity, so good! Oh and for the broth I used leftover Turkey carcass broth that I had in the freezer from Thanksgiving. Would like to try this again with the optional coconut milk (minus the lemon juice maybe for this version). Thanks for the recipe!!
What a great description of all your tweaks Jennifer. Thanks for sharing. Glad you enjoyed. Let us know how the soup turns out with the coconut milk if you try it.
Have made this quite a few times . Simple & so tasty. The Lemon juice & the parsley at the end gives it a nice zesty flavour.
Glad you’re enjoying the recipe. 🙂 Thanks for leaving a comment.
This is best lentil soup I have ever had; a wonderful recipe.
Gabor
So nice to hear! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment Gabor 🙂
I made this soup today I didn’t have any celery. I added some sweet potato as well. It was very tasty I will making it again.
Glad you like it Kate 🙂
Absolutely delicious! I used 1 carrot and 2 small sweet potatoes. The added lemon made such a difference! Definitely a keeper recipe.
Happy you loved it Ann 🙂
I’ve made it twice. I personally preferred it with curry+cilantro combo but loved it either way. I may try adding the lentils later or try other coloured lentils to keep them from disintegrating so much. All in all, will keep making this as a new favourite!
Hi Melanie. Glad you liked the soup and will keep experimenting to get it just right for you. 😊