Best Lentil Soup
This healthy lentil soup recipe comes together quickly with pantry ingredients. Simple spices, fresh greens and a squeeze of lemon make it the best! Vegan.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on October 3, 2024
This soup recipe was a long time coming! Over the years, I made some lackluster lentil soups that never saw the light of day on this website. No vegetarian food blog would be complete without a proper lentil soup, though, so I perfected one of my own.
Here it is. My lentil soup is made with mostly pantry ingredients but includes hearty greens and a squeeze of lemon for bright, fresh flavor. It’s seasoned with a few of my favorite spices and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Honestly, it’s the best lentil soup I’ve ever had.
The original title of this recipe was “Spiced Vegan Lentil Soup,” which is accurate, but a mouthful. With over 500 five-star reviews, I think it’s safe to call this the Best Lentil Soup. Period.
Whether you’re looking to lighten up your meals or warm up with a steaming bowl of soup, this healthy lentil soup recipe is for you! It’s one of my all-time favorites and I hope it becomes a staple in your kitchen as well.
How to Make the Best Lentil Soup
Five reasons to love this recipe:
- The recipe calls for seasonal vegetables and affordable pantry ingredients, but tastes gourmet.
- This lentil soup has an amazing hearty texture that’s lightly creamy (yet there is no cream). The trick is to blend up a portion of the soup once the lentils are tender, and then pour it back into the pot. It’s like magic.
- This nutritious, well-balanced soup counts as a meal if you enjoy a generous portion. Lentils are rich in protein, fiber, iron and folate.
- Lentil soup packs well for lunch in a leak-proof container, and it tastes even better the next day.
- This soup freezes and defrosts well. Make soup now and enjoy it later!
Watch How to Make Lentil Soup
Please let me know how this lentil soup turns out for you in the comments. I’m always so eager to hear from you.
If you love this soup, check out my hearty vegetarian chili, favorite black bean soup and pinto posole. You can check out all my soup and stew recipes here.
Don’t miss my lentil minestrone recipe in my cookbook—if you’re a fan of this soup, you’re going to love it.
Best Lentil Soup
This simple vegan lentil soup recipe comes together quickly with mostly pantry ingredients. Be sure to have your ingredients prepped and ready before you start cooking! Recipe yields four large bowls of soup, or six more modest servings.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium yellow or white onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon curry powder
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 large can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, lightly drained
- 1 cup brown or green lentils, picked over and rinsed
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 2 cups water
- 1 teaspoon salt, more to taste
- Pinch of red pepper flakes
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 cup chopped fresh collard greens or kale, tough ribs removed
- 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice (½ to 1 medium lemon), to taste
Instructions
- Warm the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or pot over medium heat. One-fourth cup olive oil may seem like a lot, but it adds a lovely richness and heartiness to this nutritious soup.
- Once the oil is shimmering, add the chopped onion and carrot and cook, stirring often, until the onion has softened and is turning translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic, cumin, curry powder and thyme. Cook until fragrant while stirring constantly, about 30 seconds. Pour in the drained diced tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes, stirring often, in order to enhance their flavor.
- Pour in the lentils, broth and the water. Add 1 teaspoon salt and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Season generously with freshly ground black pepper. Raise heat and bring the mixture to a boil, then partially cover the pot and reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the lentils are tender but still hold their shape.
- Transfer 2 cups of the soup to a blender. Securely fasten the lid, protect your hand from steam with a tea towel placed over the lid, and purée the soup until smooth. Pour the puréed soup back into the pot. (Or, use an immersion blender to blend a portion of the soup.)
- Add the chopped greens and cook for 5 more minutes, or until the greens have softened to your liking. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Taste and season with more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice until the flavors really sing. For spicier soup, add another pinch or two of red pepper flakes.
- Serve while hot. Leftovers will keep well for about 4 days in the refrigerator, or can be frozen for several months (just defrost before serving).
Notes
Soup recipe roughly based on America’s Test Kitchen’s lentil soup in The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, with reference to The First Mess’ favourite lentil soup.
Recommended equipment: I love my Vitamix blender and Le Creuset 5.5-quart Dutch oven (affiliate links).
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Lovely soup! Easy to make and tastes great!
Have made and shared this recipe many times. It is a “wow” recipe if you tailor it to your own tastes. I jack up all the curry, spices, and add fresh chili heat.
Of course it’s subjective.
Ordinarily ( it seems) recipes are dialed to a common denominator taste zone.
The recipe IMO is “gringo” or tame as is.
But the flavors in total are a fantastic combination, just waiting for your individual take.
5 stars from me!
Your Lentil soup was a smashing success ! Like you tried many versions –
Lackluster !
Only note when I got to
‘Add drained tomatoes ‘ I got insecure .Does she really mean no liquid at all ? And why ? Or is just pouring g out of the can referred to as drained .
So please just explain that
You can use some of the liquid if you prefer. I liked it best this way.
One could choose not to drain the tomatoes and then reduce the amount of water in the recipe accordingly.
This soup was wonderful. The flavors were rich and flavorful. The lemon juice flavored the soup with a bright flourish.
Delish and very satisfying
So tasty. I sometimes make it without the greens or substitute spinach if that’s what I have on hand. The seasonings are so rich and warm. You can’t go wrong with this recipe. Thanks much!
It’s a little frustrating when you omit “notes” and “nutritional information” from Print, it prints them anyway, going to a third page :(
I’m sorry to hear that! You can always adjust in your printer settings if it seems to be wonky on which pages you want to print.
Hi, how long does this keep in the fridge?
It should last 4-5 days. Always use your best judgement.
My sister recommended this soups to me. Made it today. Kids said: mom, your best soup so far! Thank you Kate. Your recipes are amazing – simple and yummy.
My family loves lentil soup and I am always looking for “new and improved” recipes! The search is over…this is definitely the best lentil soup ever. It’s simple and the perfect spice blend. The only tweak I made is to increase the lentils by another 1/2 cup. We like our lentils :)
Are the lentils dry or presoaked?
No need to presoak the lentils.
This is great, but far more than 4 servings. If you’ve got a small household like me, cut the recipe in half or you will have leftovers for days.
It’s only me on my house and I always freeze extras in quart size bags for days I don’t feel like cooking.
I love that idea! Thank you for sharing, Willa.
This lentil soup is delicious!! So hearty and filling! The lemon juice adds a nice kick. Any time I need a new recipe, I check Kate’s website first. You can trust any recipe of hers will be awesome.
Great to hear, Joy! I appreciate your review.
Do the lentils have to be pickled? Or could i hypothetically have uncooked lentils added in the beginning?
These aren’t pickled, they are uncooked but get cooked in the soup. Does that help?
Really great soup. I think that the spice blend must be *spot on*, it is so tasty. I also love that it doesn’t require anything super perishable. Onions and carrots have a good shelf life. I added frozen spinach and green beans at the end. I’m sure I will tweak this depending on what I have on hand a hundred times.
Kate, I made your lentil soup recipe this evening exactly as you directed, and I thought it was Outstanding. I printed it out and it will go into my favorites binder for do-over’s. That doesn’t happen often. Thanks for the great recipe. I am not a Vegan > I know, nobody’s perfect! So, I’m thinking that browning a pound of coarse ground beef, and adding it in at the same time as the lentils, would make a great meal for us sometime meat eaters too. I hope that’s not too great of a heresy?
Best lentil soup ever. I’ve made this 5 times and shared the recipe with family and friends. Love the curry kick. Thanks so much.
Delicious! I added a sweet potato, used less water and broth, and went excessive with collard greens so it would turn out more stew-like. Such a good result with such simple ingredients and perfect for a snowy day!
Great recipe for a cold day! Thank you for sharing, Joan.
We loved this lentil soup!! My husband is already requesting it again! If I want to see but at a dinner party but can’t cook it right before, could I put it in a crockpot to keep warm for an hour before serving? Or would it get too mushy?
You can try it, but the lentils could get over done. Let me know if you try it!
Delish! Make a batch on Sunday and take it for lunch every day! I use red curry paste instead of powder since that’s all I had the first time–adds nice layer.
Yummy! First time I’ve ever made lentil soup (we’re not ready to go vegan, but we are trying to eat more vegan meals for our New Year’s resolution). This recipe is a winner. I followed it exactly except I had a red bell pepper that needed to be used, so I chopped it up and added it with the carrots and onions. So delicious! Thank you!
You’re welcome, Karen!
I made it exactly according to the recipe using spinach for my green add in (personal preference). It was delicious with plenty for leftovers. I was a bit heavy on the pepper flakes but it was so flavorful that it was fine. I’ll adjust next time.
Good soup- my tweeks are adding two stalks chopped celery a fennel bulb chopped and 8 oz tomato paste instead of tomatoes.yummy.
Made it for the first time a week ago and on the third batch already. Very delicious and super easy. Even added celery for a little crunch. This recipe is truly the best. It’s unstoppable with some sourdough bread.
I loved ♥️this healthy lentil soup!The kale was perfect in it! I’ve tried several recipes over the years & this one is the best! I made the 12x serving & it’s almost gone! I will be making another batch to freeze! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you
I love to hear that, Patty!
This is my new favorite thing, and one of the most flavorful lentil dishes I’ve ever had. I made it with assorted lentils and subbed spinach because it’s what we had in the house and it turned out delicious. This will be going into heavy rotation, thanks a million!
You’re welcome, Steph!
Delicious soup! We added a stalk of celery and doubled down on some spices. Didn’t drain the tomatoes just reduced water. Accidentally bought tomatoes with added oregano, basil and garlic, but they were great in it! Threw in some green beans that were on their last leg as well as kale and cooked the whole thing in the Instant Pot for15 minutes with natural release. Topped with cilantro. A full meal in a pot and quite filling!
Oh my goodness, the soup is amazing!
I’ve really enjoyed many of your recipes! Thank you!
in this recipe, I found that my lentils were undercooked. Even though I cooled the soup longer than suggested, they were still slightly hard. Any suggestions?
I’m sorry to hear that! They might have needed more during the cooking time or could have been on the older side.
This soup was amazing! My first time making lentil soup so I didn’t know what to expect, but I loved the heat in this soup. I added mushrooms and celery that I had on hand as well.
Always good — love making this on gold winter nights!
What amount of lentil soup do you get from this recipe?
This soup yields 4 servings.
Will using Trader Joe’s prepackaged(cooked lentils) retain the flavor of the broth if I only cooke for 5-10min?
I would suggest a bit longer just so the flavors really have a chance to meld.
This has been my go-to lentil soup recipe for years, but today I panicked because the recipe I printed out was 2 pp in my recipe binder, and I lost/misplaced p. 1.
So glad I was able to find the original recipe here.
Thanks for sharing. It was so yummy. I was scared to substitute the kale/collards for 2c of spinach but it can out great.
Hi Kate,
Just cooked your recipe! Easy to make and definitely worth pureeing a portion of the soup mix. I measured half and half of soup mix which included barley, red lentils and yellow & green split peas, and the other half with green lentils. I was a little heavy handed with the curry sauce and omitted the water and chilli, which like you said, it would make a thicker soup. It turned out hearty and delicious! Will absolutely make it again and now one of my favourites ☺️
Wonderful to hear, Carmel! I appreciate your review.
Not a lot of experience making soups but was craving a warm, healthy dinner option yesterday. Your recipe was easy enough to follow with a wonderful selection of ingredients/flavors. The only issue I had was with the soup being too thick which was okay for me but my husband said it was too dry at that consistency – he added water to his bowl. I didn’t cook it longer than recommended but next time will cook at barely a simmer and add more 1-1/2 times broth or water. Again, love the flavor!
Can this soup be made with red lentils? Thanks!
Hi Taylor, others have and didn’t mind the results. You will need less liquid and less cooking time. I would reference my How to Cook Lentils
This lentil soup was a game changer for me. One day, I realized that the only difference between my lentil soup and my vegetable beef soup was that one had lentils and the other had beef. So I googled lentil soup, and yours looked the best. And I followed your recipe to the letter. It was smart to eliminate the extra water from the diced tomatoes. It was a great idea to make the soup creamy by putting 2 cups of the soup, in the blender and then incorporating it back into the soup pot. And I really, really liked the addition of ground cumin, curry powder, and lemon juice at the end–that was the game changer. Thank you for posting this recipe!
I’ve made this soup several times and it’s always been fantastic, but the last time I made it, it turned out brown for some reason. Do you know what I might have done wrong, so I can avoid it in the future?
Hmm.. it could have been the vegetable broth you used or did you forget the tomatoes?
So easy and quick to make, filling and delicious. Thank you.
I have made this soup so many times and it is always a hit! I find that using baby kale or spinach makes it a little easier so that I don’t have to rerib, like I would with regular kale. I’ve done that too though! Still a super easy and delicious soup.
I made this today and it turned out delicious. Nice recipe.
Oh.My.Gosh! I am working on reducing the meat in my diet for health reasons and didn’t have high expectations when I made this…BUT…this fabulous soup almost sold me on getting rid of meat altogether! Holy cow – high flavor, great blend of spices (love the lemon juice finish), hearty and filling. It was amazing. So often soup recipes are just bland and I have to tweak them, but this was spot on. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe – I will be making it often and sharing it with my friends!
I’ve made this soup many times exactly as written and it’s wonderful. I’ve also made it slightly varying the ingredients when I’m out of something like replacing the kale with spinach or half the lentils with white beans, etc. The base provided by the onion, garlic, carrot and spices is so good that after adding the broth and tomato, I also sometimes throw in a zucchini I need to get rid of or a sweet potato, and it still tastes amazing. Even my boys who like meat love this!
It’s tough to find a lentil soup recipe that is flavorful. My batch was “fine,” but needs something more. I added more lemon juice and that helped. I also used only Veg broth and no water as I was afraid of the lack of flavor. It’s quite creamy though …. And it is healthy so it will be “fine.”
I’m sorry to hear you didn’t love it. I appreciate your feedback, Emily
This soup was really good!! Love it!!
I’ll be honest. Soup was ok. Maybe I’m not used to lentil soup or maybe I just didn’t add enough greens. But I found what saved it for me was adding a dollop of sour cream. Other people liked it as it is though.