Recipe: Three-Lentil Soup

by Shannon Turner
December 3, 2010

This is one of my very own recipes, stumbled upon by accident.  I love trying to make something new, something that I've never tried before - and largely out of that adventurous spirit, this soup was born.  I've revised and perfected the recipe before posting it here, but feel free to add your favorite ingredients as you like!

Shopping List:
Celery
Carrots
Fresh Garlic
Onion
Lemon
Green Lentils
French (Black) Lentils
Red Lentils
Olive Oil
Black Peppercorns (if you have a grinder or pepper mill for them, if not - Ground Black Pepper works)

For the soup base, you'll need:
2 Celery stalks, chopped (Keep the leaves! This is where a lot of the flavor is!)
3 Carrots, chopped (I prefer not to peel the carrots, as the soup will be more flavorful)
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
2 TBSP Olive Oil in a large soup pot
32 oz purified water (Again, the taste difference is huge.  On the right in the adbar, I've linked to a bunch of water filtration systems that are very affordable.  I use them in all my cooking.)

Heat your olive oil on medium-low.  Sautee the diced onion for 4 minutes, then add the minced garlic.  Sautee for another 2 minutes, stirring often enough that your garlic won't brown or burn.

Add your carrots and celery and sautee for 2 minutes.  Once that's done, add your water.  If you let this simmer (and we will), you'll have a fantastic base for this and many other delicious soups.

While your soup base is simmering, measure out the following ingredients:
1 cup of green lentils, rinsed (Don't mix these with the french and red lentils! They cook for different lengths of time!)
1 cup of french (black) lentils, rinsed
1 cup of red lentils, rinsed
1 more carrot, chopped
1 more celery stalk, chopped
Add your green lentils to the soup base along with 2 cups of water.  Let your lentils simmer on medium heat for about 30-40 minutes depending on your stove, or until soft.

For a more flavorful soup, you could substitute out the water you add to the lentils for extra soup base we made above. The lentils will soak up the soup base, or the water, and expand.

It's important to NOT add salt to the soup base or the water just yet, because adding salt to uncooked lentils and beans will make them too hard and they will take longer to cook.

As a general rule, 1 cup of dry lentils will need 3 cups of water to cook thoroughly. Since we have the vegetable stock already in the pot, we can get away with only adding 2 cups for the green lentils and 2.5 cups each for the french and red lentils.

Once the green lentils have cooked thoroughly, add your red lentils and french lentils and 5 cups of water or soup base total (2.5 cups for each cup of lentils).  These should only take 20-25 minutes to soften.  This is a good time to add the carrot and celery, too.

To make this soup extra thick and hearty, we're going to blend some of it and put it back into the pot. You can use an immersion blender if you like, but I prefer to measure out the soup, blend it, then return it to the pot so I can get a better feel for how much I've actually blended.

Depending on how thick you like your soup, I recommend blending between 1/3 and 1/2 of the soup. If you're making this (or other soups) for someone who has recently had a wisdom tooth removed or other dental work, blend the whole thing!

You didn't forget about that lemon, did you? I hope not, because the lemon really helps to bring out the full flavor of this soup. Cut it in half and get all the juice you can out of it. You might want to do this in a bowl with a citrus reamer so you won't get seeds in your soup.

Add all of the lemon juice gradually to your soup, stirring well to distribute it evenly throughout.

When you serve this soup, crack some fresh black pepper over the top. Enjoy!

Note: I try to cook low-sodium in most of my meals. You might have noticed that there's no added salt in this soup at all. For cooking reasons, we couldn't add it until the lentils finished cooking. Since everyone's tastes are different, try leaving the soup unsalted - and allowing everyone to salt their own bowls.