Spicy lentil and carrot soup is a lovely quick soup to make – full of protein rich lentils and veg. It has a rich flavour that will have you wanting more.
It’s a great option for a quick meal if you’re in from a run and happen to have a bag of carrots lying around. It’s also incredibly cheap to make.
Play around with the spice mix to suit taste. You probably don’t want to use too much more cumin, but if you want to really spice it up, just up the chilli flakes.
Serves 2 – 3 if main dish, 5 – 6 if entree or snack
2 tsp cumin seeds
½ tsp chilli flakes
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 onion roughly chopped
½ kg of carrots. No need to peel – just wash and top and tail. Roughly chopped.
1 cup red lentils, washed and drained
3 cups veg stock (or just water with some veg stock powder is fine)
Optional: yoghurt; handful of chopped coriander
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat.
- Put in the cumin and chilli. Cook for a minute or so to release the flavours. Take out about half of the mix and set to one side on a paper towel to drain off the excess oil.
- Cook the onion with the remaining spices for a couple of minutes, then throw in the carrots, lentils and stock. Bring to boil then reduce heat and bring it to a simmer.
- Cook for 20 mins or so until the carrots tender.
- Take off the heat and let cool a little. Then whiz the soup in a blender. I use a hand held blender so a little less washing up to contend with.
- Serve and sprinkle the spice mix you set aside on top.
- Serve with chopped coriander and yoghurt.
This is great served with naan bread.
Enjoy!
Adapted from BBC Good Food