- Hey, I'm John Kanell,
and today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making a delicious lentil soup.
So let's get started.
To make this hearty soup,
you'll need a large pot, some olive oil, an onion,
two carrots, two stalks of celery,
garlic, one pound of lentils,
some spices, so, coriander, cumin, thyme, a bay leaf,
salt and pepper, diced tomatoes,
a lemon, veggie broth, a little bit of kale,
and then you can garnish it with some parsley or chives,
or whatever you want.
First off, we're gonna do some prep work.
So I have my pound of lentils right here.
I wanna give them a wash
and just make sure there's nothing else hanging out
in the lentils.
So we're gonna fill this up with some water.
I've got these soaking in a basket,
so I can just pull them out when I'm ready
and they'll be nice and clean.
Those are set aside
and now we have a little bit of chopping to do.
This soup is one of my childhood favorites.
My mom would always have a pot of lentil soup cooking
and it lasts for a long time,
and it's just so hearty when the weather is cold
and you want something that's really filling,
easy and delicious,
it feels good to eat it.
The size is up to you.
I like things on the bigger side,
so, slightly larger pieces for me.
Two stalks of celery, two carrots,
and I like those big, hearty like chunks of carrots in here.
You can let me know in the comments
if you have like a favorite addition
that you like to add to your soup.
At the end of this video,
you're gonna see the finishing touch,
which I actually didn't tell you yet.
So there's one thing that we like to add to it
at the Kanell household.
It really finishes the soup off in a nice way.
Finally, an onion from our garden,
we harvested it a while ago
so it has a bit of that papery skin,
but it'll be so delicious.
Before I dice this onion, I'm gonna open my pot up,
add four tablespoons of olive oil
and just get it nice and hot so it's ready.
Four tablespoons exactly measured.
I want this over like medium heat.
If you're really in a rush at home,
you can actually buy like a mirepoix mix
at many grocery stores,
and it's just a mix of diced carrots, onions, and celery.
It's like a soup starter for almost anything,
and that way you can just add that right into the pan,
but, you know, I have veggies hanging out at home,
so why not get to chopping?
All right, my last bit of prep is the garlic, six cloves.
You can let me know in the comments
what six cloves means to you.
I feel like that's a whole head, but I don't know.
Give that garlic a smash, whoa,
and then we're gonna mince it up.
You're smashing it releases some of the oils
and it also releases the skin.
Nobody likes the garlic skin.
Mince that up.
One time-saver I wanna steer you away from
is bottled garlic.
Just don't do that, just mince it up yourself,
much better flavor, it's not processed
and your soup will thank you for it.
Everything's chopped, my oil's nice and hot,
so now I'm gonna add my celery,
onions, and the carrots.
We're gonna stir this occasionally
for four to five minutes over medium heat
until the onions begin to caramelize.
We're always gonna the reserve the garlic
for a little bit later because that burns first.
I bet you all know that already.
Grab a wooden spoon
and we're gonna get to stirring, occasionally.
I'm using a big cast iron Dutch oven.
This maintains the heat, it radiates it out,
and you get really even, nice heat.
If you're using a pot with thinner walls
like some of the big pots are,
just make sure you're stirring frequently
because those get really scorching hot on the sides
and they will burn your ingredients.
Those onions will be the first to go.
You're looking for the onions to become translucent
and really just start to soften.
So once that happens, we're on to the next step,
but until then, just stir and like keep an eye on things.
It's getting close, so I'm gonna grab my spices
and just have them at the ready,
cumin, the coriander, and the thyme.
You can definitely use fresh thyme in this,
fresh chopped thyme.
If you do that, you want one tablespoon,
but if you're using dried thyme, one and a half teaspoons.
So, if you take a look here,
you can see my onions are translucent,
that means it's time to add some garlic in.
So, grab your garlic,
and we're gonna add this in, along with the spices.
So we're gonna add our one and a half teaspoons of thyme,
our one and a half teaspoons of coriander,
and one and a half teaspoons of cumin.
Stir, stir, stir.
And by the way, this smells so good,
but don't taste it yet
'cause there's no salt and pepper in there.
It definitely needs salt so you can actually taste it.
We're gonna cook this for about two minutes
while stirring constantly,
just so the onions and the garlic don't burn,
and then it's time to add the tomatoes.
Just make sure you have your cans at the ready
and if you need a can opener, have that too.
And we want 28 ounces of diced tomatoes.
So stir, stir, stir.
You wanna scrape any of the brown bits
off of the bottom of the pan or the pot.
This is the caramelized deliciousness so don't waste it.
And then we're gonna add six cups of veggie stock.
So, this is four cups.
I did not make my own veggie stock today.
I also washed my lentils, like... what's this thing,
is it a lentil?
I don't know, but I'm not gonna eat it.
This is gonna get just one final shake through,
lentils go right in.
I'm also going to add about half a teaspoon of black pepper,
totally up to you though.
One bay leaf makes a big difference, maybe two.
Give it a stir.
And we're gonna bring this to a boil.
So increase your heat a little bit to medium.
Right now you can straighten things up.
And when it comes to a boil, we're gonna give it a cover.
Have that lid at the ready.
Once this comes to a boil and you can see it's just started,
we're gonna reduce the heat to low.
We want it to simmer now.
Get your lid out and partially cover it.
And our soup is going to be simmering
while we come and stir just occasionally,
just give it a stir when you walk by.
Everything's gonna soften up,
the flavors are gonna meld together,
and then we're gonna add more flavor in.
Okay, so, take a look at this.
As this simmers, it's gonna boil down a bit
and the lentils are hydrating, so, it's gonna dry out.
You can add more stock in as needed,
just to make it nice and soupy again.
So you might end up using two additional cups
or you might like it really thick,
it's kind of up to you and what your personal taste is.
This is almost ready, a little more simmering.
My soup's almost ready, so I grabbed about two cups of kale.
I'm just tearing it up
and looking for any big stalks that need to be removed
because the leaves will soften up,
but those stalks take a lot more time.
And by the way, this is totally optional.
If you're not a kale fan, you don't have to add it in.
We're gonna season this with salt to taste.
So I'm adding in a little bit less
than a teaspoon right now.
Give it a good stir.
When we made this at home,
we almost added like no salt at all,
and all the flavor came from lemons... and something else.
Now we're gonna add the zest and juice of one lemon.
This will really wake your soup up
and just add a ton of like brightness and depth of flavor.
Now for that lemon juice, but no seeds.
All right.
Now for our two cups of kale, we're just gonna add this in.
Stir this in and just simmer
until the kale is all wilted and soft.
If you want your lentil soup to have a thicker consistency,
you can take out two cups and mash it up, blend it,
or just use your immersion blender a little bit like...
(short whirring)
Just a little bit.
It'll give you that like thick,
kind of hearty soup consistency that we all love.
Spoon that soup into a bowl
and garnish with fresh herbs,
or, if you're like my mom,
you can add a drizzle of olive oil and a drizzle of vinegar,
it really wakes things up, that's our family secret.
Now everyone knows.
Ready to tuck into this?
This might be the ultimate cozy dish.
This is delicious as it is,
but you might wanna try that drizzle.
Hope you get a chance to make this recipe
and I'll see you in the next video.
If you like this recipe,
check out my soups and stews playlist.