This recipe is a bit famous in our household, a recipe that we have used over the years (since 1997), and laugh about the supposed garlickiness of it. But don’t skimp on the garlic. It is worth every clove. (Actually, because the garlic cooks out, you don’t taste it in the way you might expect.) This is a hearty soup, great for cold cold weather. Roughly chop the ingredients for a rustic farmhouse soup, or chop them finely for a more refined bowl.
Are you looking for similar soups? Try Red Lentil Soup with Feta, Du Puy Lentil Soup, and Turtle Bean Soup.
Browse our collection of Soup Recipes and our Red Lentil recipes. Find some inspiration in our Late Autumn collection of recipes.
Make a large batch so that you can put some in the freezer for those cold nights coming home late without an ounce of energy for cooking.
Red Lentil Soup with Spices, Ginger and Garlic
Prep time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 40 mins
Serves: 4 – 6 people, depending how you use it
ingredients
2 cups split red lentils (masoor dal)
1.75 l vegetable stock or water
2 bay laurel leaves
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and mashed or chopped finely
5 cm piece of ginger, chopped finely
2 carrots, grated
0.5 cups tomatoes, diced
1 red capsicum, diced
0.5 tspn turmeric powder
1 cup onions, sliced
0.5 cups shallots, sliced
1.5 Tbspn olive oil
2 tspn cumin powder
2 tspn coriander powder
0.5 red chilli, finely sliced, or to taste
2 Tblspn lemon juice
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
method
Wash the lentils, removing any impurities, and place in a saucepan with the vegetable stock, bay leaves, garlic and ginger. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the carrots, tomatoes, capsicum and turmeric powder. Simmer for a further 15 minutes.
In a separate pan, sauté the onions and shallots in the olive oil until the onions are soft and just beginning to brown at the edges. Add the remaining spices and sauté for 1 minute more. Remove the bay leaves from the soup and add the sautéed onions mixture and the lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and pop the lid on the saucepan. Allow to sit for 5 minutes for the flavours to meld, and serve.
I love lentils and soup…very reminiscent of the Greek one.
Hi truenorth, there is a Greek one? Do you have a recipe?
Wow, garlic and lentils – two of my favorites. I don’t care how hot it gets this weekend, I would make this. Looks delicious!
Don’t they make the best pot partners? Hope you enjoy it!
The soup looks so refreshing. Lovely presentation too.
Thank you Uma. I was so lucky to catch that light.
Exactly what I want right now. Just lovely. Your pictures are stunning.
Oh hope you get to treat yourself with some. I have put quite a bit in the freezer. Thanks for noticing my pictures. It is hard to photograph soup and I wanted to do something different to what I normally do.
beautiful pictures J!
Thank you Srivalli. There was a bit of contortionism involved!
Great recipe, if you have the time to publish a video on how to make it, that would be nice
Really?
Recently I also posted a red lentil soup. I would love to try this version also.
It looks great, I will link to it.
Thank you very much for the mention Vegeyum.
You are so welcome.
thanks for a beautiful click and recipe.
Thanks, bee.
I used to think of this soup being oh so garlicky! I made it the other morning, and when I read the recipe I thought to myself ‘only 5 cloves?!?’
So I went for 8 garlic cloves instead.
Hey, I hope it was garlicky enough! I can remember the first time I made this – we ate it out on the deck with Debbie. Probably a Sunday lunch.
Beautiful lighting!
Thanks, Lynne
Thank for Nice story.Just bookmark now!
Thanks!
yummy it turned out great! yummy yummy Yummy!!
Wonderful, David, thanks for letting me know.
Sounds delish, gonna have to get myself some of that!