This red lentil soup recipe from Turkey is delicious. The soup resembles one you might have at a Turkish restaurant because of its vibrant flavors and nice, subtle spice. I prepare a large quantity and eat it every day for a week for lunch with crusty bread and salad. If preferred, garnish with more mint and lemon wedges.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 50 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ onion, diced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- ¼ cup diced tomatoes, drained
- 5 cups chicken stock
- ½ cup red lentils
- ¼ cup fine bulgur
- ¼ cup rice
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon dried mint
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (Optional)
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large pot over high heat. Add onion and sauté until beginning to soften, about 2 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add diced tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes.
- Stir in chicken stock, lentils, bulgur, rice, tomato paste, mint, paprika, cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until lentils and rice are tender, about 30 minutes.
- Purée soup with an immersion blender until smooth.
- To make a vegan version of this soup, use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.
- Bulgur wheat is a dried grain that can be found in the bulk sections of most health food stores, international markets, or in the international section of your grocery store.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 168 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 24 g |
| Cholesterol | 1 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 7 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 623 mg |
| Sugars | 3 g |
| Fat | 6 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I used fresh mint instead of dry, and it really helped in the balance of flavors. However, using tomatoes of any form included in this recipe is not anti-inflammatory. I got to this page from an anti-inflammatory recommendation, and I recommend no tomatoes at all, and to use some puréed Zucchini instead the three star rating is because the soup is not anti-inflammatory as was advertised out of your control on another site. With the zucchini, I would make this a five star.
I substituted the paprika for chili powder. I had to lower the flame when I noticed the tomatoes getting burned. Very thick, not soupy but tasted good. I followed and this is how it came out.
Really tasty! I didn’t have fine bulgur, so I used buckwheat groats instead (kasha). I also added a little smoked paprika at the end. I will definitely make this again!
Followed exactly. It was really spicy and not much flavor.
So tasty loved it! Made minor replacements because I was out of some things. Used Basil instead of mint and 5 bouillon cubes Mixed in 5 cups of water (FYI-do not and any extra salt if you make this way) instead of chicken stock.
Fantastic spicy soup, perfect for a winter day! I make whole wheat bread and serve with this. My family raves over it. Thank you for the recipe, it tastes just as good as the Turkish restaurant nearby.
I added cumin to this because my mom aways did. Came out delicious.
Mmmm….comfort food! Amazing flavor, texture and easy to make. I used fresh tomatoes and mint from our garden (peel and chop tomatoes and finely chop mint and double it’s quantity since it’s fresh.) Used extra mint for garnish. As another reviewer suggested, I used crushed red pepper flakes instead of cayenne and adjusted for heat. I doubled the recipe since we like leftovers and it tastes even better the next day. I didn’t have bulgur so I went with all rice, and look forward to using it as written in the future. The rice made it smooth and mild; I’d imagine it to be a little more hardy with bulgur. Soooooo good! Family loved it. Will definitely make again.
Made as is and LOVE IT!
This is fantastic, I served with garlic Naan.
First of all do not trust any recipe for red lentil soup that doesn’t contain cumin. Secondly, 14 minutes of high heat will absolutely cremate your onions. the quarter cup of diced tomatoes will not save them. It is just too hot and too long. What i made was basically a tomato soup. It was a pretty good tomato soup, but i ended up picking out a lot of burnt black onions from my teeth. Surprisingly they did not seem to ruin the flavoring. The soup was sweet, thick, the only heat coming through was the cayenne pepper. There are better recipes out there for turkish red lentil. It was interesting to try this one to compare. What am I going to do with the rest of this fine bulgur? I don’t want to make tabbouleh.
Very good soup. Mine did not turn out with this pretty orange color, maybe because I used a veggie stock that was brown colored? I added some sumac to it which is a spice often used in Middle Eastern cooking. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. I didn’t have any trouble with the directions of the recipe. I just wished it had turned out a little more “wow” like. I probably won’t make it again. But I will definitely ask to have it when I visit Turkey in 2022.
I have been making this recipe for years. The only changes I make are to substitute Cayenne pepper with double amount Aleppo Chile Pepper that I bought in a Turkish store. I also usually add about a half a teaspoon of ground cumin.
i’d recommend more liquid. i had to add another cup
This soup was very flavorful but not heavy. Would definitely make this again. A Turkish friend had given me some Turkish red pepper so I used that in place of the cayenne. We will add some leftover roasted chicken to the leftover soup.
Loved this soup – I used vegetable instead of chicken stock as well as fresh mint. Divine.
I had to add more liquids. Its a great winter soup, tastes divine – I followed the recipe exactly – but even after blending it was way too thick for a soup. I added an additonal 1 cup pureed tomatoes and 2 cups water and that turned out good.
Yummy, easy, healthy and cheap! Love it with lemon wedges or lemon juice in a pinch
Used four cups of chicken broth and one cup water, and it was awesome.
I did this in my stove top pressure cooker, it is awesome. cooked for 15min at high and then allowed natural release, needed more water as it kinda stuck to the bottom but otherwise YUM!
This soup is delicious, I had it several years ago in Istanbul and found this recipe when I returned home. The recipe is perferct, though I use fresh mint. Also, we are meat eaters so after soup is finished cooking, I remove it from the dutch oven and pour in blender and blend, I leave it in the blender and sauté Hot Italian Sausage in the dutch oven and remove the grease. I then pour the soup back in the dutch oven over the Italian Sausage and it is amazing – I serve with some crusty French or Italian bread, I have served this to just family and for a dinner party and it is a hit!