Lentil Soup

Well, here we are again. Another new year, another resolution, and a warm and filling recipe to help us on our way. Because sometimes a classic recipe is all we need to fulfil our hearts and take us back to when things were simple and life was less complicated.

LENTIL SOUP

This is THE lentil soup I grew up with. My mother would make this for us at least once a week, and she would add anything to it: pork, chicken or beef. Personally, the pork version is the one I crave til today, but for now, I’m keeping this lentil soup simple and leaving the meat/chicken/pork part up to you! And I’m not kidding when I say this soup is filling. I mean, FILLING. Fully loaded, you don’t need to serve this with anything else!

HOW TO MAKE LENTIL SOUP

ADDING MEAT

You can most certainly add it in, like we did here in this Warm Chicken and Pumpkin Lentil Stew! When it comes to poultry in this soup, I prefer the darker meats such as thighs, as breasts tend to dry out. You can of course use breasts if you prefer! Cook your onion, garlic, carrot and celery. Throw in lentils. Add in tomatoes and potatoes. Mix through remaining ingredients. Simmer. These are my suggestions only, using 1 pound (or 500 grams) for boneless, and 2 pounds (1 kilo) for bone in meats:

Skinless bone-in chicken thighs Diced chicken thigh fillets Skinless chicken drumsticks or drumettes (you can either leave bones in once they have cooked in the soup, or remove them and shred the meat back into the soup). Pork chops (bone-in ) — my favourite. Once they are cooked in the soup, remove the bones and shred the pork, then mix the meat through the soup. DELICIOUS. Pulled pork (use this crispy slow cooker carnitas recipe, once the pork is cooked, just add it into the soup.) Bacon Ground beef Chuck steak cut into 1-inch pieces

All of these options can be added after step 1 in this recipe. Allow the meat to brown, then add in the lentils and continue the recipe from there!

DO I HAVE TO SOAK LENTILS?

NO! Personally, I love the texture of this soup made from scratch. Lentil soup is delicious when the lentils are simmered from scratch in all of those flavours and develop a nice, creamy texture from the beans into the soup. You don’t need to pre soak them! However, like this 10-Minute White Bean Parmesan Spinach Soup where we use canned beans as a time saving solution, you can use canned lentils if that’s all you have on hand. If using canned, add them in during the last 5 minutes of cooking. They don’t need long as they are pre-cooked. Then of course, dip some bread into it like there’s no tomorrow. I made a batch of these Individual Garlic Breads to serve with ours!