A Go-To Easy Red Lentil Soup
There are a handful of recipes that I’ve shared over the years that I make about once a week – dark rye bread, red lentil patties, sautéed red cabbage – my standards. These are dishes we make on rotation, recipes I’ve made hundreds of times.
This carrot 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 several 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. Like all of my go-to recipes, this vegan red lentil soup can be easily adapted to suit your tastes.
I first shared this recipe in 2017. It’s been updated with improvements to the recipe instructions, new photos, including step-by-step photos, and more helpful information.
I don’t use affiliate links. Any links you see here are to other recipes or related information, not paid links.
One reader, Ken, commented: “Darn good! Made it per the recipe, using fresh spinach. This will go into the rotation. Thank you!”
Another reader, Jill, said: “I’ve added this recipe to one of my favorite soup. I’ve made it over and over and have gotten rave reviews. Thank you for a simple recipe and a very tasty one. I always feel so warm and healthy after eating it.”
Ingredients You’ll Need and Why
These are my notes from testing and making this recipe for the last decade, with substitutions that I actually use on a regular basis. You can find the full recipe card below.
- Carrots: switch out the carrots for sweet potato if you’d like. I’ve made this with pumpkin, too, but note that the final texture is softer if using pumpkin in place of carrots.
- Lentils: use red lentils, either whole or split. The cooking time will be slightly longer if using whole lentils. I don’t recommend using other types of lentils for this recipe.
- Spices: 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 – change this to suit your preferences.
- Greens: any hardy greens, like chard or kale, can be used in place of spinach. Fresh and frozen both work very well.
- Add-ins: potatoes can be a nice addition (think potato lentil stew) and other vegetables like parsnips are nice too.
- Broth: Though the recipe card calls for vegetable broth, 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 broth is primarily salt, and a touch of fat).
- Rice: the brown rice can be replaced with quinoa, millet, or other grains, or simply left out and the soup served on its own. We quite often have it with sourdough bread or crackers.
How to Make Carrot Red Lentil Soup
It really is easy, but there are a couple things that improve the flavour a lot and shouldn’t be changed: cook the onions for the full time outlined, don’t forget to toast the spices, and don’t boil the spinach. You can see a short video for this recipe here.
Step 1: cook the onions until translucent, then stir in the carrots and cook for a couple minutes more. You can extend the cooking time here if you’d like the carrots to be very soft and sweet. Stir in the garlic, ginger, and spices, and cook for another couple of minutes.
Toasting the spices: this adds some additional depth of flavour to the soup and improves the overall taste of the cumin and turmeric. It’s especially noticeable if you use cumin seeds, like I usually do.
Step 2: add the tomatoes and broth. If you have anything that’s a bit stuck to the bottom of the pot at this point, the liquid will lift it once added. Use crushed or chopped tomatoes. If you only have whole canned tomatoes, use scissors to quickly chop them.
Step 3: bring to a rolling boil before adding the lentils. Simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the lentils and carrots are tender. This should be plenty of time for red lentils but if lentils are very old they will need more time to cook.
Step 4: stir in the spinach and let it thaw. If using fresh spinach, there’s no need to cover again before serving. Season to taste with lemon and additional salt if needed.
My Expert Tips for the Best Lentil Soup
- Check the lentils: if the lentils you’re using are quite old (you might not know, they could have already been old when purchased) they will take longer to cook. If your lentils seem to be taking ages to soften, this is probably why.
- Store in the freezer: this makes a big pot of soup, far too much for my little two person family, but it freezes fantastically and I usually keep a couple of jars in the freezer. It’s a total life saver for busy or tired 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, biscuits make everything better.
- Don’t overcook the spinach: 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!
- Season to taste: 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.
- Change the spice level: adjust the soup to suit your taste in regard to spices. If you don’t like spicy food at all, be sure to omit the cayenne pepper.
- Omit the lemon: 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. Go by your personal taste.
More Lentil Soup Recipes
- This tomato lentil soup is another simple one using a long initial cooking method to pull out the flavour of the vegetables. If you only have brown or green lentils on hand, try that one instead.
- Cabbage lentil soup is also a standard in my recipe rotation in the winter, with pasta added to bulk it out.
- If you like the look of this in terms of flavour but prefer a creamy blended soup, try my lentil sweet potato soup, also with red lentils.
- With rice cooked right into the soup, this rice, lentil, and butternut squash soup is a hearty option with lots of vegetables.
If you make this Carrot Lentil Soup or any other vegetarian soup recipes on Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email.
Carrot, Red Lentil, & Spinach Soup
Description
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 medium red onion chopped
- 5-6 medium carrots about 3 cups, cut into 1 cm (¾ inch) slices
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 3 cm (1 ⅕ inch) 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 (13.5 oz.) canned diced tomatoes
- 1.5 litres (6 cups) vegetable broth
- 150 grams (1 cup) red lentils
- 150 grams (1 cup) frozen spinach*
- Juice of ½ a lemon
- Brown rice to serve
Instructions
- In a large pot, heat the oil over medium. Add the onion and sauté for about six minutes, or until soft and fragrant. Stir in the carrots, and cook for another couple of minutes.1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 medium red onion, 5-6 medium carrots
- Add the garlic, ginger, and spices, stirring to coat the vegetables. Cook for another two minutes, reducing the heat if needed. Add the salt and tomatoes, stir, and pour the vegetable broth in.3 cloves garlic, 3 cm (1 ⅕ inch) piece fresh ginger, ½ teaspoon cumin, ½ teaspoon turmeric, ½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 400 grams (13.5 oz.) canned diced tomatoes, 1.5 litres (6 cups) vegetable broth
- 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.150 grams (1 cup) red lentils
- 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.150 grams (1 cup) frozen spinach*, Juice of ½ a lemon
- Serve over brown rice and store leftovers in the refrigerator or freezer.Brown rice
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.
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!
Would a can of chickpeas be a good addition to this?
Sure!
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.
I often make it with split red lentils, it works well!
Would I be able to use "split" red lentils or should I use "whole" green lentils instead?
Hahaha totally! I always think if I need a loaf of bread to get through a soup, then the soup isn't worth eating! You're so welcome <3
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
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!
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.
How many calories is a bowl of such a soup? Do you happen to know? Thanks.
Happy to hear it, Nidhi! It's a great soup to add to your rotation. Thank you 🙂
Thank you so much, Dana <3
Hahaha almost, eh?! I'm never quite ready for cold weather either!
Thank you so much, and I hope you love it 🙂
Thanks, Karen, let me know if you make it!
Wow those pics are stunning and this soup looks so great for the cold months – bookmarking!
I love making soups and your nutrient rich recipe has me inspired on this brisk morning to pull out my soup pot. Your tip regarding adding the frozen spinach at the end is brilliant. I cannot wait to try your soup – thank you for sharing.
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! 🙂
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 🙂
Ah! Perfect autumn hearty soup option, I am going to add this as a variety to my go-to autumn list. thank you for sharing. Love the photography 🙂