Turkish Red Lentil ‘Bride’ Soup

Love, love, love this soup! Easy to make, so tasty and so healthy!

Great variation of lentil soup, I was getting tired of the “curry lentil”, soups and the use of mint and lemon as well as bulgur make this alternate a nice change. It is also very easy to make. I made some last week and came back to this page to make a second batch today. I also suspect it will freeze well.

There is no way to mess this recipe up. It is easy peasy with a minimal amount of dicing involved. It is nutritious and delicious. Perfect in the cooler months. I love it!

It could use more broth.

This soup was very easy to make. I made it for a Turkish meal at my friend’s home. She and her mother are from Turkey. She stated that this is a common soup made in villages for community meals and that she makes it once a year. Everyone loved it and went back for seconds! I could not find bulgur here so I substituted it with farro. It took less time to simmer. I left it on 30 minutes and it was perfect!

I’m Turkish and I absolutiely love this soup. I’m sure this taste close to authentic, but I can’t try because I’m vegan and this has butter in it. To veganize it you can use olive oil instead of butter. It definitely doesn’t compromise the taste. There are some recipes a nonvegan ingredient is critical to the taste, but this isn’t one of them. Also vegetable stock isn’t commonly used in Turkish homes, so if you want it to taste closer to authentic you could use tap water instead. I also add rice in it, but it’s not a must. Some people also add garlic while cooking (so it’s cooked), I tried it and it tastes awesome, but I prefer without garlic. As a lot of people pointed out squeezing lemon juice in it gives it an awesome savory taste.

Simple and easy. I increased bulgar to 3/4 cup as we like thicker soups. It really benefits from the lemon juice. This soup is a hit! Easy to make and flavorful.

Made it for my Turkish boyfriend and he absolutely loved it! I had no dried mint so I chopped, stirred in and garnished with fresh. I will definitely make this recipe again. Thanks

I made it for dinner tonight with a salad. Very tasty and so healthy. Frying the onion in the butter added so much more flavor than olive oil. I didn’t have any mint leaves sadly. But the flavor was still great! I used beef broth – turned out a bit too salty. I will use low sodium broth next time.

I made it for dinner tonight with a salad. Very tasty and so healthy. Frying the onion in the butter added so much more flavor than olive oil. I didn’t have any mint leaves sadly. But the flavor was still great! I used beef broth – turned out a bit too salty. I will use low sodium broth next time.

One onion was plenty.

My Turkish husband loves this soup! Don’t forget to squeeze lemon juice into it as you eat it. Delicious and a very forgiving recipe. I’ve had to make substitutions from time to time and the variations rarely hurt it.

Nice, filling soup with great flavour. I found 2 tsp of dried mint was enough, perhaps my mint was particularly pungent? I squeezed a bit of lemon juice into the soup rather than put lemon slices on top. My kids definitely did not like the look of this soup (colour and texture) but loved the taste so I would suggest lots of garnish if your family tends to judge food by appearance.

Lovely soup, my background in cooking is middle eastern cuisine and I found this to be a nice change to lentil soup. I added chili powder instead and a little citric acid while simmering to give it a little tang and it was delicious served with toasted pita bread.

First time I saw “Bride’s soup” on allrecipes! Awesome. I had been winging it for a while. The only difference I made was that I added Sumac (a purple Turkish spice) and cooked with a pinch of lemon salt. (Squeeze of lemon while cooking will work too, in addition to the lemon slices at the end that are already mentioned.) I cook the lentils first, then hand-blend, then cook the bulgur after. And also, just because I only ever have this on hand, I always use fresh Miso paste for my stock for all my soups and I think it makes no difference. Great recipe. Thanks for sharing! My fiancé and I lived on Bride’s soup when we were in Turkey, even though the traditional “Lentil çorba” is more common…

This is one of the best soups I’ve ever made!! My grocery store did not have vegetable stock so I used vegetable broth instead and also added some extra powdered broth because it tasted a bit bland. I also added some finely chopped cauliflower. 10/10 will make again!

Great cool evening main dish. We had a baked potato on the side. I did make it a bit different, since there was fresh mint in the garden, I diced to very fine the mint and used 1/4 cup leaves, and cooked it with the entire batch of broth at step 3. For the broth used for broth the mushroom flavored ‘better than bouillon brand, 1 teaspoon for each cup of water. You do need to cook with the lid off the pot to help it thicken, or at least I did. Also, when I served I had lemon garnish as suggested, but also added a dollop of ‘sour cream’ by Tofutti, which is vegan. A great and hearty vegan meal! I love AllReciepes.com since I can truly find anything here.

Awesome… I make it once a week!!!

Such a great dish! Added a diced carrot and celery stalk. Used my immersion blender at the end to make it smooth. Stirred in some plain yogurt and ate with crusty bread. Used half stock, half water to reduce the salt.

Fantastic soup! Added more dried mint from the beginning when frying the onions. Added 2 cups of diced cooked ham. This recipe is a keeper. Genevia, thanks for sharing it with us all.

Wow! This soup is amazing! I subsituted 1/2 cup of rice for the bulgar and added 2 carrots and 4 celery stalks to the onions. It was so delicious, I already forwarded the recipe to my brother and sister as we have a middle eastern dad that use to cook for us all the time. An instant favorite that I will make many more times.