This lentil soup recipe is easy to get excited about because it is delicious, satisfying, comforting, beautiful, and, thanks to the lentils, meaty. When you're eating this, it really doesn't seem like a vegetable-based soup. Garnish with thinly sliced mint.
Ingredients
- butter: 2 Tbsp
- yellow onion: 1 piece (diced)
- tomato paste: 3 Tbsp (to taste)
- kosher salt: 1 tsp (to taste)
- garlic: 4 clove (crushed)
- ground cumin: 2 tsp
- cayenne pepper: 0.125 tsp
- quart chicken broth: 1 piece
- red lentils: 1 cup
- rib celery: 1 piece (diced)
- carrot: 1 piece (diced)
- leaves fresh mint: 6 piece (sliced)
- pinch salt: 1 piece
- plain Greek yogurt: 3 Tbsp (to taste)
- lemon: 0.5 piece (juiced)
- lemon zest: 0.5 tsp
Metric Conversion
Stages of cooking
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Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, tomato paste, and salt to melted butter. Cook, stirring often, until onion softens and tomato paste turns a deep brick red or brown color, 5 to 7 minutes.
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Add garlic, cumin, and cayenne pepper; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in broth and bring to a boil. Stir in lentils, celery, and carrot. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lentils and vegetables are very tender, 30 to 40 minutes.
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Meanwhile, make lemon-mint yogurt: Grind mint and salt in a mortar and pestle to a paste. Add yogurt, lemon juice, and zest; stir together until combined. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
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Taste soup for seasoning. Use an immersion blender to purée about 1/2 of the soup to achieve a creamier texture. Serve hot with spoonfuls of lemon-mint yogurt.
