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
Video
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.
This was so delicious!
🙂
YES. Fabulous recipe. Thank you so much. The only thing I changed was an addition of one zucchini and corn , fresh off the cob.
Nice tweaks – so glad you liked it. Appreciate you leaving a comment 🙂
Lovely soup; thank you.
Hello from Wales!
Hello back Rhonda! Thanks for leaving a comment 🙂
So flavorful the first time I made it, but I forgot to add the 1c. of water. Second attempt I added the water. Still good but I preferred the thicker soup/stew texture the first batch. I also uses half vegetable/half chicken broth for flavor. Almost as good as our
favorite local Mediterranean restaurant. Making this on the reg!😋😍
Happy you loved the soup! It’s all about getting it right for you and it sounds like you have nailed it with a little experimentation 🙂
Really simple to throw together and the whole family loved it! The lentils do break down the longer you cook it, which is fine by me – makes it more of a stew for leftovers.
Yes, red lentils do break down more with longer cooking, but I like that too. Happy the family loved the soup. Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment 🙂
Very easy and great tasting!
Hello. Can I use canned red lentils?
Hi Wendy. Yes, you can use canned lentils with a few changes: Rinse and drain them first. Since they are already cooked, you can add them (twice the amount of dried lentils should work) in the last 10 minutes of cooking the soup. Also, you may need to reduce the salt in the recipe if the canned lentils contain salt. Hope that helps 🙂
This is an excellent soup. I made it exactly as the recipe suggests and it is really simple, healthy and budget friendly.
Thanks Catherine. So glad you liked it 🙂
This recipe is fantastic! My only issue is that the soup disappears too fast.
Funny 🙂
I agree! After making this once and seeing how quickly it was devoured, at our house, it’s a DOUBLE BATCH from now on!
So so easy and amazingly healthy and yummy! Really appreciate the short cuts ideas offered as well as the substitutes. My new fave Fall soup!! ?
Thanks Sheri! Glad you liked it. If you mean the shortcut of chopping the veggies in the food processor, I like that one too – big time saver 🙂