Red Lentil Soup
Quick Recipes Simple Recipes Fasting Recipes Budget Recipes Vegetables Turkish
Rustic red lentil soup, served with aromatic and spicy croutons. Just a reminder that red lentils become mushy when cooked, so don't be disappointed that the grains don't stay whole like in green lentil soup. That's their charm. However, for a bit of texture I added coarse bulgur and served it with rustic croutons.
I've had an extremely busy week, with no time to cook. Imagine that this soup was the first homemade meal this week. A blessing after so many sandwiches and pizza. Calmer days are not in sight, so we'll probably have lentils for Valentine's Day too 😊
Ingredients
125g red lentils
25g coarse bulgur (or rice)
1 medium onion
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon pepper paste
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon dried mint
1/4 teaspoon chili flakes (pul biber)
2 canned tomatoes (+ 2 tablespoons of their juice)
2 tablespoons oil
salt
Rustic Croutons
4 medium slices of bread (preferably 1-2 days old)
50g butter (or oil for vegan version)
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon dried mint
1/4 teaspoon chili flakes
coarse salt
Servings: 4
Calories: 185 cal/serving, approx. 300g soup (calculated without croutons)
How to prepare red lentil soup
- Wash the lentils well until the water is no longer milky.
- In hot oil, sauté the finely chopped onion for just 2-3 minutes. Add the crushed garlic and sauté for 1 more minute. Add the pepper paste, mint and chili and sauté for 2 more minutes (until the paste caramelizes slightly). Remove the pot from heat and mix in the paprika very well (I also added a pinch of smoked paprika to enhance the smoky aroma of the pepper paste).
- Add the lentils, tomatoes mashed with a fork and 1 liter of water. Return to heat and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low (the soup should only simmer gently; this is important because red lentils become mushy when cooked anyway, but on high heat they simply "explode"), place the lid slightly ajar and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Then add the bulgur and salt and continue simmering on low heat with the lid ajar for another 10 minutes.
- While the soup is cooking, melt the butter on low heat in a small pan. Add the paprika, mint and chili and stir.
- In a bowl, tear the bread into pieces. Drizzle the aromatic butter over them in a thin stream while stirring so the butter reaches all pieces of bread. Then mix very well. The croutons will only color partially (they will look marbled).
- Place the croutons on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, sprinkle with coarse salt and bake at 150°C for 10 minutes.
- Serve the soup with rustic croutons and lemon wedges (vitamin C from lemon helps with iron absorption from lentils). The soup is also good reheated.
The soup has 185 calories per approx. 3 ladles (300g; 11g protein; 5.75g fat; 24g carbs), not counting the croutons. Instead of croutons, to reduce calories you can serve with a crispy whole wheat Wasa cracker.
