Lentils may be tiny, but they sure pack a nutritional punch. These wholesome little power houses serve up 18 grams of protein per cup – so it’s no wonder that some people tout them to be amongst the world’s healthiest foods.
Lentil soup comes in so many beautiful forms but one of my all time favorite varieties is French lentil soup. Perhaps it’s my love of all things French that draws me back to the simplicity of this soup. Or it could be that the few simple ingredients required always seem to be in my pantry and refrigerator. And what’s even better about my version is that you can make it in the crock pot!!!
Although, traditionally, you would use Le Puy green lentils to make authentic French lentil soup, I don’t – and trust me my soup tastes just as good and costs a lot less to make 😉 If you feel like splurging buy the fancy Le Puy lentils, but if not, good old brown lentils will do just fine.
Now onto the soup…
This is really just a chop, dump, stir and forget it type of recipe. If you have the patience to finely dice the carrots, onions and celery go for it. Or, if you’re like me and want to save time – use a small chopper or food processor and pulse each ingredient a few times to get a fine dice.
Add the carrots, onions, celery, garlic, dry lentils, and canned tomatoes to your crock pot.
Pour in the vegetable stock, water, Kosher salt and pepper and stir gently.
Cover and set on low for 6 hours. Now go have fun or run errands or take a nap, or do laundry or read a book, or do whatever it is you feel like doing!
After 6 hours stir in the red wine vinegar to add some brightness to the soup and you are ready to serve.
If you have fresh parsley or celery leaves to garnish it not only looks beautiful but also adds a fresh pop of flavor. Now how easy was that?!
I’m going to make this this week…and I also have 8lbs of cooked ham…would it be weird to add ham to this? What’s your expert opinion? 😉
Hi Allie! Thanks so much for your question, I love that you are looking for new ways to use up extra ingredients! If this was a split pea soup recipe I would say go for the ham! But lentils have a very different earthy flavor and this particular soup is broth based. Since ham can really take over flavor profiles, I recommend you make the soup by itself and then add in some chopped warm ham to the bowls as you serve them. That way you can 1. taste it to make sure you like it and 2. not overpower the entire pot of soup with ham flavor. I hope this helps! Let me know how it turns out 🙂