- Hey guys, it's Yumna, AKA Feed Good Foodie.
I love to share nutritious wholesome meals
that make your body feel good.
And today I'm sharing with you a soup recipe
that I grew up eating my whole life.
And it's probably the most popular
Mediterranean soup recipe.
It's crushed lentil soup.
If you've eaten at a Lebanese restaurant before,
you probably already tried this soup.
It's vegan, it's easy to make,
and it fills you up like a whole meal does.
Made with just a handful of ingredients,
this healthy and hearty soup is comforting
for colder months and it's ready within just 30 minutes.
Here's what you'll need.
You'll need a tablespoon of olive oil, one onion,
a cup and a half of red lentils,
1/2 a cup of rice, about a carrot or two carrots,
some cumin, lemon juice, salt and pepper.
Let's get started.
We have in here some oil and I'm gonna add the onions
and we're gonna cook the onions for five minutes
until they soften.
Now we'll go ahead and add the lentils,
(oil sizzling)
the carrots, rice,
and we'll season it with the cumin, salt and pepper.
All right, we'll give all that a stir
and let it cook for just a couple minutes,
just to get a nice color on those carrots
and bring out the flavor of the lentils.
Once you start hearing those toasting sounds,
it's time to add the water.
You'll wanna do between six and 10 cups of water,
depending on how thick you like it.
I found about eight cups works really well.
And at this point, I usually just eyeball it,
since I use the same pot every time.
We'll give all that a stir.
We're gonna bring it to a boil
and then cover the pot and simmer it on low
for 20 minutes until the rice is fully cooked
and the lentils fluff up.
And here's what it looks like when it's all done cooking.
You'll see that the rice is fluffed,
the lentils have become kind of a yellowish color,
and it's basically ready to go.
At this point, everybody has different opinions about this.
Some people will serve it as is.
Some people will blend it all the way
and then other people will blend it half way.
It is called crushed lentil,
and it's called that because the lentils literally
get crushed while they're cooking.
You can see they're so small, you can't even see them.
For me, I like to blend it just halfway,
just to kind of give it a little bit more of a creaminess
but still be able to see that rice, lentils, and carrots.
We're gonna take our handy dandy immersion blender
and just give this a quick little pulse.
And that's basically the consistency that I like to have.
You can see it gave it a nice orangy color,
but there's still some chunks in there
of vegetables and rice and lentils.
A huge part of the flavor, though, is the lemon juice,
so usually I'll add the lemon juice at the end
of the cooking process so that it doesn't give it
a bitter taste, but it just gives it
a bright and zingy taste at the end.
I'll just, I'll usually take about a whole lemon
and just squeeze it right into the pot.
And I like using the sifter just to make sure
there are no seeds in the pot of soup.
Time to serve it.
I'm just gonna give it a good stir
to get that lemon juice all blended in there.
And keep in mind that the lentil soup
is going to actually get thicker as it sits and settles
because that rice is going to continue
to absorb all that liquid in there.
So if it feels a little too liquidy, don't worry about it,
it's actually gonna get thicker overnight.
Now we've got two bowls of lentil soup,
and I like to garnish it with a little bit of green onions,
a little bit of parsley,
and stick some fresh lemon slices in there as well,
just to accentuate that lemony flavor.
Put that in there, a little bit of salt and pepper.
And there you have it, Lebanese crushed lentil soup.
It's a super easy recipe to make.
It's vegan, it's healthy, it's nourishing,
and I just love having it in the colder months
and enjoying it as even a whole meal
or as an appetizer to a meal.
It's time for video Matt to try this recipe.
Let's give you a spoon, little taste.
Awesome, he likes it.
And I hope you try the recipe and like it as well.
Thank you for watching.
Check out the video description below
for a full written recipe and be sure to like,
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with Feed Good ingredients.
See you guys next time.