Red Lentil Soup with Lemon

My wife dis­cov­ered this recipe in the New York Times a few years back. She gave the recipe a try and we all loved it. I found all of the taste qual­i­ties I desire in a soup to be present and deemed it a ten out of ten. It has become a sta­ple in our fam­ily, espe­cially dur­ing the cold months. How­ever, with my new diet (avoid­ing any gluten, sugar, or dairy) I thought it would be good to have tonight. Besides, when you’re on this kind of diet, if you think of some­thing, you make it. No spend­ing time look­ing for some­thing new to exper­i­ment with. The soup has a won­der­ful com­bi­na­tion of spices and has a good pro­tein, nutty fla­vor. And the color’s just beau­ti­ful. We’ve altered the orig­i­nal recipe a bit over the last year and a half or so, adding sour cream (I need to get the Tufutty sour cream to try) along with a few other minor tweaks.

This dish is very sim­ple and fast to make, yet it tastes as good as it gets. Here’s the recipe – let me know what you think of it!

Red Lentil Soup With Lemon

Ingre­di­ents

3 Tbs olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 gar­lic cloves, minced

1 Tbs tomato paste

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp sea salt, more to taste

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Pinch of ground chili pow­der or cayenne

1 quart veg­etable broth

1 cup red lentils

1 large car­rot, peeled diced

Juice of 1/2 lemon, more to taste

3 Tbs chopped fresh cilantro (plus some for garnishment)

1 Tbs of sour cream for each serv­ing (tofu sour cream if you prefer)

Instruc­tions

1. In a large pot, heat 3 Tbs oil over high heat until hot and shim­mer­ing. Add onion and gar­lic, and saute until golden, about 4 minutes.

2. Stir in tomato paste, cumin, salt, black pep­per, and chili pow­der, and saute for 2 min­utes longer.

3. Add broth, 2 cups water, lentils, and car­rot. Bring to a sim­mer, then par­tially cover pot and turn heat to medium-low. Sim­mer until lentils are soft, about 30 min­utes. Taste and add salt if necessary.

4. Using an immer­sion or reg­u­lar blender or a food proces­sor, puree half the soup then add it back to pot. Soup should be some­what chunky.

5. Reheat soup if nec­es­sary, then stir in lemon juice and cilantro. Serve soup in bowl, adding a dol­lop of sour cream to the mid­dle of the soup and gar­nish­ing with some chopped cilantro.

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