Lentils Vegetable Soup
| February 21, 2010 | Posted by usha under Event Entries, Soups, Soups, Vegetarian |
Back in November, I was looking at EC’s light meals round-up and Sayantani’s soup caught my eye. I hopped over to her blog to check out the recipe. The recipe looked simple and very tempting. It had lots of vegetables and lentils and looked light. I bookmarked the recipe and was looking for a perfect time to try it out. I finally tried it out on a cold Fall evening for dinner. I had 2 bowls of soup that night and 2 more the following day for lunch. It was delicious. Since then, I made it 3-4 times and simply love it. Thanks Sayantani, for sharing this recipe!
The first time I made the soup, I followed the recipe exactly as given, except for the bell peppers, which I did not use. As I made it more often, I stopped following the recipe as give and started tweaking it as per my liking. The only reason for tweaking the recipe was, once I knew how to prepare it and the ingredients used, I stopped referring back to the recipe each time I made it. I started adding ingredients without measuring them, as I normally do when I cook, and hence the recipe or the quantity of the ingredients differ from the original recipe. I also liked the flavor and the taste of vegetables in the soup and ended up adding more veggies to it. In my altered recipe, you would find lot of veggies in the soup and if you do not like so many veggies, adjust them to your liking. Also, I call for extra dal in the recipe than required. There is always a layer of dal at the bottom of my pot after I finish all the soup. It tastes perfect the way it is and don’t want to adjust the quantity of dal, even though there is some dal left over after I finish the soup. U hasn’t tasted this soup yet. He doesn’t like mushrooms and second, it is a veggie soup! Next time I make this soup again, I will replace the mushrooms with chicken pieces so that he can’t make any excuses… 
Source: A Homemaker’s Dairy
Total Time: 30 minutes
Preparation Time: 15 minutes (cooking dal)
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Yields: 3 bowls
- 1/8 cup Masoor Dal (Red Lentils)
- 1 small Tomato
- 1 cube Chicken flavor Bouillon (can use any flavor)
- 4-5 small White Mushrooms diced or approx. ¾ cup diced mushrooms
- ½ Carrot cut into desired size or 1/6 cup cut carrots (little less than ¼ cup)
- 5 String Beans cut into small pieces or 1/6 cup cut carrots (little less than ¼ cup)
- ¾ chopped Spinach (loosely packed)
- ¾ cup Black Pepper Powder
- 1 small onion diced
- 1 – 2 tsp oil
- 1 tsp ginger garlic paste
- pinch of turmeric
- 3 – 4 cups water (i used 3 cups)
- Wash and cook masoor dal in 1 ½ – 2 cups of water. This should take about 15 – 20 minutes. I didn’t check the time when I cooked it. This dal cooks very fast, unlike toor dal.
- Add tomatoes and water and bring it to a boil. This should take about 5 minutes.
- Add cube of stock bouillon and continue to boil it for another couple of minutes. If you don’t have bouillon, you can use stock cube or skip it all together. Or instead of water, substitute it with stock.
- Add diced mushrooms and continue to boil it for about 5 minutes.
- Add carrots and beans and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Add spinach and continue cooking.
- Meantime heat a small pan with oil and onions, ginger garlic paste and pinch of turmeric.
- Add this tempering to the soup.
- Boil it for couple of minute and turn of the heat. Can add cilantro to it . I forgot to do so today.
- I don’t like over cooked, mushy vegetables. If you feel the vegetables are raw, boil the soup for few more minutes.
This healthy Lentils Vegetable Soup is making is way to Healthy Inspirations Event: Soups.
this looks so comforting,..;-)
Thanks dear for trying this recipe and refering my URL. your version looks perfect and adding chicken stripes sounds great. would also try that for my Hubby dearest.
This soup sounds like a powerhouse of nutrition. Looks very inviting and yum, thanks for sharing this wonderful creation with the Healthy Inspirations event !
Wow, what a healthy soup! Loved the paneer kababs and khasta kachoris too!
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