Prep Time: 20-25 minutes plus overnight for soaking | Cook time: 25 minutes | Yield: 10 to 12 servings
Ingredients:
1 lb or 16 oz brown lentils
1 yellow onion, chopped
3-4 carrots, chopped
4-5 celery stalks, chopped
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup dried parsley
Salt and pepper, to taste
(optional) 14 oz diced tomatoes
(optional) Ham
Instructions:
Fill a stew pot 1/2 up with water and add in lentils, cover and let soak overnight.
Most folks will say you don’t need to soak your lentils but this is how my mom makes it and it turns out awesome, the soaking allows the lentils to get soft without pulverizing them or turning them to mush.
Next day, drain lentils and rinse 3 times.
Fill your stew pot back up to 3/4 full(this will make your soup more broth-like, if you like your soup to be more thick then fill the pot up only 1/2 way), bring to a boil and then turn off and let your lentils rest for 20-25 minutes.
While your lentils are resting, finely chop the onion, carrots, and celery. We recommend shaving your celery this is what will differentiate this from other lentil soup recipes. My mom’s secret to any recipe with celery – shave it. Get your potato peeler out and shave the ribbing off the celery, this will make them tender and removes the courseness.
Add onion, carrots, celery to the pot along with bay leaf and parsley. Salt and pepper to taste.
Add a few dashes of red wine vinegar to your bowl of soup to finish!
Non-vegetarian style:
If you’ve got ham leftover from Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other occassion cut it up and add it to your bowl of soup.
Vegetable Lentil Soup Recipe By Liberty Tsighis, December 9, 2011
