Occasionally Eggs

Healthy Vegetarian Recipes for Every Season

Soups and Stews

Carrot, Red Lentil, and Spinach Soup

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Vegan red lentil soup with carrots, lentils, and a tomato base. This simple soup is a weeknight staple and can be made with common pantry items like canned tomatoes, frozen spinach, and dried red lentils. It takes about half an hour from start to finish and freezes well.
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This post was originally published in September 2017. It has been updated as of May 2020 with improvements to the text and recipe, and a video added.

There are a handful of recipes that I’ve shared over the years that I make about once a week – red lentil falafel, potato lentil salad, raw chocolate, sourdough rye bread – my standards. Seriously, there’s a rye bread rising on the counter right now and I made the lentil falafel for dinner tonight.

This red lentil soup is another recipe I make all the time, and it’s so great for 1. when I haven’t gotten groceries for three days, 2. when my budget is low, or 3. when I’m starving and need a quick and easy dinner that isn’t pasta. It can be finished in about half an hour, including prep time, which is just chopping carrots, onions, and garlic.

It’s an all around great simple recipe and makes good use of batch cooked ingredients and pantry staples like canned tomatoes and frozen spinach. It’s so budget friendly, especially in spring or autumn when carrots are in season and so inexpensive and delicious.

Substitutions

Like all of my go-to recipes, this vegan red lentil soup can be easily adapted to suit your tastes. I like to include lots of spices – cumin, turmeric, ginger – but I’ve also made it with just a little cumin and standard salt and pepper.

You can switch out the carrots for sweet potato if you’d like. I use carrots because they’re much more available here in the Netherlands and about 1/6th of the price of sweet potatoes, but in Canada I did it about half and half.

Other greens work well instead of spinach (like chard or kale), and I’ve even added a couple of potatoes to the mix before. The brown rice can be replaced with quinoa, millet, or other grains, or simply left out and the soup served on its own.

Though the recipe card calls for vegetable stock, this is mostly because I get readers sending me messages annoyed if I list water instead of stock. I use water most of the time and just season properly (since most store bought veg stock is primarily salt, and a touch of fat).

Tips and Notes

This makes a big pot of soup, far too much for my little two person family, but it freezes fantastically and I love having a few jars in the freezer. It’s a total life saver for busy or tired (read: burned out) days and since I usually have brown rice or sourdough bread around, it’s a meal.

If we’re having it for dinner and I don’t have either of those, I usually make these coconut oil biscuits. I don’t mind having the soup on its own but let’s be real, carbs make everything better.

Like all soups, there are a couple of tricks to keep in mind. This is a very flavourful one, with plenty of spices, tomatoes, and vegetables adding a lot – but if you taste the soup at the end of cooking and it tastes bland or flat, you need salt or acid. If it tastes salty enough, add a squeeze of lemon. Most of the time vegan soups are lacking salt, though. Season your food!

More Great Soups

Kale, White Bean, and Lemon Soup
Roasted Tomato, Zucchini, and Eggplant Soup
Creamy Cauliflower Potato Soup
Chickpea Noodle Soup
Spring Green Minestrone
Or, check out this collection of cozy cold weather soup recipes!

Front view of carrot red lentil soup with rice and spinach in a bowl with a spoon.

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Yield: 6

Carrot, Red Lentil, & Spinach Soup

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
4.47 from 77 votes

Ingredients

Metric – American
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • ½ red onion chopped
  • 5-6 medium carrots about 3 cups, cut into 1cm (3/4 in.) slices
  • 3 cloves garlic minced
  • 3 cm piece fresh ginger minced
  • ½ teaspoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon turmeric
  • ½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper to taste
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt to taste
  • 400 grams canned diced tomatoes
  • 1.5 litres vegetable stock
  • 150 grams red lentils
  • 150 grams frozen spinach**
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • Brown rice to serve

Instructions

  • In a large pot, heat the oil over medium. Add the onion and sauté for a couple of minutes or until soft and fragrant. Stir in the carrots, and cook for another minute or two.
  • Add the garlic, ginger, and spices, stirring to coat the vegetables. Now add the salt and tomatoes, stir, and pour the vegetable stock in.
  • Increase the heat to high, cover the pot, and bring the soup to a rolling boil. Add the lentils and reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20-25 minutes, covered, or until the carrots are tender.
  • Stir in the spinach and turn off the heat, letting the hot soup thaw the spinach with the lid on. Add the lemon juice, taste, and season with salt if necessary.
  • Serve over brown rice and store leftovers in the refrigerator or freezer.

Video

Notes

** If you want to use fresh spinach, go for about 100g and remove any larger stems.
• Using the heat from the soup to thaw the spinach has two purposes – it brings the soup down to an edible temperature, and it keeps the nutrients of the spinach largely intact. And the colour stays nice and green!
• Sometimes I don’t add the lemon – if the brand of tomatoes you’re using is very acidic, you might want to leave the lemon out.

Nutrition

Serving: 1g Calories: 360kcal Carbohydrates: 18g Protein: 16g Fat: 0.5g Sodium: 412mg Fiber: 24g Sugar: 3g
© Alexandra Daum
Course: Soups and Stews
Cuisine: North American
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Comments

  2. Dana Sandonato says

    This is such a gorgeous bowl of goodness. You can tell how wholesome this is just by *looking* at it! It can be tough to photograph broth-y soups beautifully, I find. But these photos are stunning. I'll definitely be making this over the cooler months 🙂

    Reply

  3. Gabrielle @ eyecandypopper says

    Yes! I make similar soups too in the winter. They're so simple to make, fast too for those busy weeknights, and packed with nutritious yumminess. Yours looks absolutely wonderful, it *almost* makes me excited about freezing temperatures. haha And I agree, I do like a big slice of crusty bread in my soup! 🙂

    Reply

  12. Alexandra Daum says

    I don't calculate calories, sorry! You could put it into a calculator if it's important for you to be really exact. It's a lower calorie soup, that's why I serve it over the brown rice.

    Reply

  13. Ellie says

    I linked to this recipe from My Fitness Pal. It very precisely lists the nutrition information, with the calories as 254 per serving, but neglects to say what the serving size is! Maybe 1 1/2 cups? Anyway, this is delicious. I made it with about 1 lb. chopped fresh chard added to the last 5 minutes of cooking instead of spinach. I'm trying to use it up before the garden freezes!

    Reply

  14. Nicky Hawthorne says

    made this. loved it. all the spices make it so hella tasty. sometimes soup can be bland, boring and really just a vehicle to eat as much bread as possible without becoming a lard-o. this soup stands on it's own. the boyfriend isn't a carrot fan so i swapped sweet pot. worked great. i went heavy handed on all the spices. could not be happier with this. THANK YOU

    Reply

  18. Nina says

    Such a wonderful recipe! Thank you. I could easily eat half the pot in one day. I had some leftover pumpkin, threw that in too and it worked really well with thee rest of the ingredients.

    Reply

  20. Jenny Swartzbaugh says

    I had leftover lentils from dinner last night and searched for a recipe that I could use them in. I found this and just made it for lunch and am eating it now! It is delicious, even though I didn’t have vegetable broth. I’m going to put this on my regular rotation!

    Reply

    • Alexandra | Occasionally Eggs says

      Dried lentils – I don’t know if you can get canned red lentils. You can soak them beforehand if you prefer.

      Reply

      • Nadia says

        Hey Alex. I used dry lentils, and I cooked the dish in my InstaPot for 25min instead. Served it over bulgar wheat, and sprinkled fresh coriander over. It was an absolute hit! Thanks! Sending your link to all my friends now!

        Reply

  22. Angelica says

    5 stars
    I don’t ever leave reviews but I thought this was spectacular. My entire family gobbled it down. Even the 5 yr old.

    Reply

  24. KateLynn says

    So so so good. Thank you! I love serving it “over rice” rather than mixing it in so the rice doesn’t become sludge in the fridge. Why have I never thought of that before?!

    Reply

  25. Ivy says

    5 stars
    Made this tonight. Omg yum. I chucked in a little fresh chilli for just the right amount of warmth. So easy, so hearty – it’s feels good in your tummy and you just know it’s gonna boost your system. Even my carnivore man went back for seconds without even complaining about the lack of meat lol. This dish is a winner 💯

    Reply

  27. Jo says

    Soup was delish! I used a small can of Rotel mild tomatoes, and the little heat was perfect.
    Correction on your carrot measure. One cm is equal to about 2/5 of an inch…not 3/4 of an inch.

    Reply

  28. nancyv says

    Made this tonight – it was brilliant! I used Indian red lentils and they thickened up the soup nicely, no need for the rice I also made. The lentils in the photos here look like green lentils – do you use them interchangeably when you make yours?

    Reply

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