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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.
Was amazing!
Awesome!
I loved this soup. I didn’t have the mint and subbed canned tomatoes but otherwise followed the recipe as is with the suggested addition of cinnamon. It was so flavourful! It also came together quite easily.
Yay!!
Wow. I made this today who knew such a simple soup could pack such a flavour punch. This is insanely delicious and so darn easy !
Awesome!! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve made this soup a few times and it’s always a winner in our home! So rich and spicy and conveniently comes together quickly. I added the cinnamon, as you suggested and some smoked paprika, doubled the cumin and finished with a squeeze of lime at the end. Thanks for this recipe!
yay! thank you, so glad you enjoy!
Do you think this could work without the tomatoes/tomato paste or less of it? This looks so delicious but I have a sensitivity to tomatoes so was wondering if I could modify.
You can reduce the amount or omit the tomatoes, but note that the flavor will be quite different.
I used chicken stock instead of vegetable, added 1/4 cup brown rice and extra paprika and mint to taste. It turned out to be a lovely soup that we enjoyed tonight for dinner. Thank you! LOVE the Turkish flavour! 🙂
Yummy.
My go-to recipe…delicious, and always have ingredients in my cupboard! Too easy!!
perfect healthy comfort food with pantry staples
The best lentil soup I have ever had! The flavor profile you built was amazing. I didn’t have mint or tomato paste so I subbed with regular parsley and red pepper paste. Adding this to my grocery list for next time. Thank you for sharing.
sounds nice the way you made it
I spent a month volunteering in the northern (Turkish) part of Cyprus a couple of years ago. At weekends we’d stop at a 24hour restaurant on the way back from the city and get this soup. This recipe is very close.
Me elderly, sick father loves it. He barely eats anything. This is a great way of getting him fed and full of protein. I usually make double or more so we don’t have to fight over it 🤣