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Easy Turkish Red Lentil Soup with carrots, turkish spices, mint. Easy weeknight meal. Vegan Gluten-free Soyfree Recipe.Jump to Recipe
Soups are a great appetizer or a meal by itself served with a salad or flatbread. And Red lentils are a definite favorite in the house. Light, quick and versatile. No waiting for the beans to soak and cook.
Onions and garlic are cooked until translucent. Then the carrots and other veggies, spices are added and toasted, hen mint, tomato, lentils and water or broth and done. Once the lentils are cooked, blend the soup carefully and serve with croutons, cucumber, flatbread or a side salad. The soup tastes amazing unblended as well and can be served so.
More Soups from the blog
- Mushroom Chickpea Soup
- Curried butternut squash soup
- Chard Mushroom Shallot Pasta soup
- Chipotle corn Chowder
- Moroccan lentil soup
- Cream of Mushroom Soup
This recipe is inspired by a mix of recipes from allrecipes.com and other sites and have evolved based on my personal preference.
Cook the onions, garlic until translucent. Add the carrots, spices and mix in. Add lentils and water and cook until lentils are tender.
Serve the soup as is, or blend and serve.
Turkish Red Lentil Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tsp oil
- 3/4 cup onion, chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1/3 cup chopped carrots, 4 baby carrot or 1 medium carrot
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp or more black pepper
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tomato chopped
- 1-2 tbsp tomato paste or ketchup
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves, or use 1/2 tsp dried mint
- 1/2 cup red lentils
- 2 1/2 cups to 3 water or vegetable broth
- 1/2-3/4 tsp salt or more salt
- red pepper flakes, mint, lemon juice and olive oil for garnish
Instructions
- Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onions, garlic and pinch of salt and cook until translucent. 5 minutes.
- Add the carrots and the spices and mix well. You can also add in a good pinch of cinnamon for variation. Cook for 2 minutes.
- Add the tomato, tomato ketchup and mint and mix and cook for 2 minutes. You can add some veggies and greens veggies at this point.
- Add the red lentils, water and salt and mix. Partially cover and cook for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue to simmer for a few more minutes until the lentils are tender to preference. Taste and adjust salt and spice and mix in. Add more water if needed.
- Cool slightly and blend with an immersion blender or regular blender(carefully). Serve in bowls with a garnish pepper flakes, lemon juice, a few drops of olive oil and chopped fresh mint(optional). Serve with croutons or flatbread of choice or a side salad.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Followed the recipe as written, served with a squeeze of lemon. It was absolutely delicious and all four picky eaters loved it. So healthy too! Thank you very much Richa for your creative recipes.
Excellent Gail!
My daughter made this for us because I eat a plant based diet. She didnt have tomato paste so she used leftover marinara sauce. She served it with lemon wedges and plain oatmilk yogurt. It was amazing! I thought about it all the next day. The seasonings and over all flavor was amazing! Thank you !
so nice
We loved this. Such fragrant flavors and just plain yummy.
Ended up making a double batch and did not blend.
Thank you for sharing!
Awesome
This is a keeper – I blended it as recommended and really enjoyed it. I’ll double or triple this next time to last the week. I might also try it over rice or couscous without blending it. Super simple to our together and excellent flavor. Thank you!
triple?! wow
This is easy and delicious! Thank you so much.
thanks for popping in
Wonderful. Serve with pita or naan and enjoy.
perfect accompaniment
Seriously delicious. With a squeeze of lemon and a little pita it’s absolute heaven!
nice rhymes
Hi, this recipe looks amazing. But I have a question about step 3 where it says “ You can add some veggies and greens veggies at this point.” I don’t see any mention of veggies (other than carrots but that’s in step 2) or green veggies anywhere. What does this refer to? Thanks!
just any of your favourite veggies!! whichever you like. and greens like spinach or kale etc.
This is a “may I have some more, please”, delicious soup, with a very nice spice mix!
Though, not wanting to go shopping, having only a couple of carrots, two tomatoes in the fridge (onions, garlic and tomato paste are always aplenty), tins of brown lentils in the pantry, and a blender that didn’t want to work, I had to modify the recipe:
I grated the carrots and used one tin of well-rinsed brown lentils. I didn’t add any mint and it tasted very nice as it was. We actually quite liked the little crunch of the grated carrot and not mushy lentils.
I’ll add red lentils to my shopping list and definitely will make this soup again! Thanks for sharing the recipe online, Richa!
thanks for popping in
This one’s definitely a keeper! I made a big batch at the soup kitchen I volunteer at (144 servings!) and it was very popular. Thank you Richa!!! 😊
wow really? that’s heartwarming. thank you
I added celery and tomatoes to it. I forgot about the tomato paste.
thanks for popping in ♡ good to know