In the microwave, prepare a DELICIOUS chocolate recipe. Add some ice cream once it’s hot! HEAVENLY!
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 4 |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste, or more to taste
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 quart chicken broth
- 1 cup red lentils
- 1 rib celery, diced
- 1 large carrot, diced
- 6 leaves fresh mint, thinly sliced
- 1 pinch salt
- 3 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt, or more to taste
- ½ lemon, juiced
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest
Instructions
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, tomato paste, and salt to melted butter. Cook, stirring often, until onion softens and tomato paste turns a deep brick red or brown color, 5 to 7 minutes.
- Add garlic, cumin, and cayenne pepper; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in broth and bring to a boil. Stir in lentils, celery, and carrot. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lentils and vegetables are very tender, 30 to 40 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make lemon-mint yogurt: Grind mint and salt in a mortar and pestle to a paste. Add yogurt, lemon juice, and zest; stir together until combined. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Taste soup for seasoning. Use an immersion blender to purée about 1/2 of the soup to achieve a creamier texture. Serve hot with spoonfuls of lemon-mint yogurt.
- To make this dish vegan, use olive oil instead of butter, vegetable broth instead of chicken, and plant-based yogurt instead of Greek yogurt.
- Other varieties of lentils will work.
- If making the soup ahead, blanching the mint for a few seconds in boiling water and then shocking it in ice water will help retain its green color when mixed into the yogurt.
- Crumbled feta cheese is a nice substitution if you’re not into yogurt.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 294 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 41 g |
| Cholesterol | 22 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 17 g |
| Protein | 16 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Sodium | 1654 mg |
| Sugars | 7 g |
| Fat | 8 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
In addition to the fact that this soup is absolutely delicious, I like the simplicity of it. It’s become my favorite for the fact that it is slightly exotic and yet easy enough to make for weeknight dinner. It’s an all around winner in my opinion.
I added red pepper flakes to spice it up and it was wonderful.
It was easy, and I always enjoy chef John’s videos. It was meaty just like he said, and I will definitely make it again!
First time I ever made anything with red lentils. I really liked it. Nice thick soup. Next time for my taste I’ll reduce cumin, increase cayenne, and just use plain yogurt or sour cream. This is a keeper.
Very good. Topping is a must!
Absolutely delicious and guilt-free. The yogurt really makes it taste great. Everyone will love this and its
This is an amazing meal, and I will be making it quite often from now on. Here were my mods: Added a little spicy curry powder with the cumin and cayenne. Also, added some diced mushrooms with the carrot and celery. But the mushrooms did not add anything really, so not sure I would do that again. But the curry powder was a great addition imo. Love this (Picture wont upload for some reason but still amazing)
Nice soup but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND to remove some of the soup and blend separately then add back.. blending it in the same pot like the video, resulted in an ugly mush all over with hardly any whole lentils left.. otherwise the taste is nice and recommended
Was delicious! The lemon-mint yogurt is just the right touch!
DELICIOUS. made it without the broth for a vegetarian friend of mine. By the end everyone was begging for more and we finished a large pot in one sitting between just four of us!
I love this healthy soup. The only change I made was instead of adding lemon yogurt and mint, I used a dab of sour cream. Delish!
Made it exactly as the recipe called for. My tomato paste didn’t look like the one in the movie when it was cooking, maybe I didn’t put as much as Chef John did or perhaps my onion amount as larger. In any case, I struggled to watch it turn to that red brick color as it was cooking. Nonetheless, the final product came out fabulous. I ground my own cumin in a mortar and pestle because I find the flavor is way bolder than with the store bought stuff. Will definitely make it again, a nice change from the brown/green lentil recipes I have made in the past
Fantastic! Couldn’t find mint anywhere so used parsley instead. Still had the citrusy colourful aspect of the sauce and worked fine.
Very delicious and comforting soup Chef John nailed it again.
I added extra vegetables, like carrots and squash and mushrooms. I also did not have chicken stock but I had some veg stock from a disaster refried beans experiment on the Instant pot. Turned out great.
This is the first time for me to make red lentil anything, but I can tell you this soup has made a lentil fan out of me. My hubby and I enjoyed this tasty soup. Though have to say, not a fan of the sauce. Maybe it was the yogurt I used, but something wasn’t right about it. We just topped ours with a dollop of sour cream and Aged Italian Cheese Blend…so, so good! Another Chef John winner recipe. Thanks!!!!
This is a fantastic recipe, simple and full of flavor. It will definitely be in the rotation from here on out.
super good, the mint lemon yogurt was crucial for me.
Absolutely Loved it. Recipe very similar but BETTER than one I’ve used in the past from The NY Times. Chef John is the best.
Incredibly yummy. Really good without the lemon mint sauce, but the sauce takes this to another level.
Good Soup, next time I would cook the carrots and celery with the onions at the beginning. The yogurt was not worth the effort, a good dollop of EVOO and some Parmesan was a better topper. Overall worth making again.