| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 50 min |
| Prep: | 25 min |
| Cook: | 25 min |
| Yield: | 6 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 shallots, minced
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 medium celery rib, finely chopped
- 1 cup lentils, rinsed and picked over
- 6 cups chicken stock, homemade, or store-bought reduced-sodium
- 1/2 pound red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1 1/2 cups cubed ham
- Parsley puree, recipe follows
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/3 cup minced fresh parsley
Instructions
- In a soup pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add shallots, carrot, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in lentils and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. Puree with immersion blender to thicken.
- Stir in potatoes and ham, cover, and simmer until potatoes are softened, 10 minutes longer. To serve, ladle soup into bowls and swirl in parsley puree.
- Combine garlic, salt, pepper, and parsley in a blender or food processor (preferably small model) and process until pureed.
- Yield: about 1/3 cup
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 6 servings |
| Calories | 398 |
| Total Fat | 14 g |
| Saturated Fat | 3 g |
| Carbohydrates | 44 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 6 g |
| Sugar | 8 g |
| Protein | 25 g |
| Cholesterol | 41 mg |
| Sodium | 982 mg |
Reviews
Got 3 inches of snow as I was preparing this. It’s tasty and wonderful!!!
i make a variation of this soup using the whole ham bone with water and use only as much chicken stock as needed to thin it down. the bone adds tremendous flavor and i skipped the potatoes. what i was most interested in was the parsley puree which didn’t chop up well in my blender so i added some chicken broth to it to chop it some more and then blended in the soup. parsley and garlic are in nice small chucks so they didn’t turn my soup green but added a lot of fresh flavor. yum
Just made this. Used green onions instead of leeks and idaho potatoes because it was all i had at home. Still pretty good. Used 2 cup food processor to make parsley puree. Should have left stems out, didnt break those down well. Will try with correct ingredients again soon and re-post
Well I made it today and my girls ( 4-5 ) had 3 bowls. I did it by softening the carrots, onion, n celery. Took it out and added smoked pork chops finely chopped. When brown added the lentils 4 C of chix stock n 2 of water. I just happened to have thyme so I added about 4 sprigs. Boiled then simmered for 30 min after adding the lentils. No salt just Knorr. Adding water as needed during the 45-hour cooking time. Very tasty!! Will add more meat next time!
Have made this several times. Always delicious! I end up cooking the soup 20 minutes, then adding the potatoes and ham for about 20 minutes as well. Parsley puree does add flavor, but optional.
We made this on a cold rainy day. I had to force myself not to add pepper and salt. The recipe was perfect just the way it is. We did not make the parsley puree and it still needed nothing added. Double the recipe so you have plenty. We also didn’t use the blender and it thickened up just fine.
I wanted to make this soup but I didn’t have the ingredients so I made some changes. I also cut it in quarters and ended up with one generous bowl of soup. It turned out really awesome! My changes:
Cook 1/3c of dried green lentils until almost perfect softness, drained them, set aside and save 1/2 cup of the water. Saute 1 tbsp of minced/shredded white onion in 1 tbsp of olive oil until soft, set aside. Saute 1/3c cubed ham in the bottom saucepan to crisp it up a little, set aside. Put the 1/2 c lentil water back in the saucepan, add beef boullion according to package to make 1/2c broth. Bring to a boil, add the lentils, ham and 2tbsp of red potatoes chopped small. Simmer until potatoes are soft, salt and pepper to taste and thicken if desired.
Even though I didn’t exactly follow the recipe given here, I still think it would turn out great and intend to try it when I can!
This was a great way to use left-over ham. We had issues with pureeing the soup (no immersion blender and problems with the food processor), so the soup was probably thinner/chunkier than it should be. It didn’t really matter. The parsley puree was a perfect addition.
This simple-to-make soup was delicious and a good use of leftover holiday ham. I added a couple of sun-dried tomatoes which were good. I did not have a food processor to make the parsely puree. Instead, I used a blender but I had to add some olive oil to get a puree. Serve with multi-grain bread, makes plenty of leftovers for tomorrow or for freezing.
This recipe is very easy and warming on a cold winter day. Freezing the left overs for a quick mid-week meal, makes life easier and comforting.