Lentil & Chipotle Soup

This gorgeous thick soup is comforting and full of flavour with an added twist from chipotle sauce.

Lentil & Chipotle Soup is perfect soul food...when you need that little bit of extra comfort, but still want to be healthy :)

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sauces, dips, dressings & sauces. In fact, I am a massive sucker for them. I make lots of them at home and have almost one fridge shelf full of them…

My partner keeps threatening me that he is going to buy his own fridge as apparently, I have completely taken over. He is a minimalist kind of guy- couple of fruits & carrots would be his ideal situation, but instead when he opens the door he is greeted with shelves stuffed with all sorts of vegetables and jars of home-made dips, sauces & dressings…I understand his frustration of apparently not finding anything, but in all fairness, I don’t feel too sorry for him as in exchange he gets lots of yummy food cooked for him so you know, tough luck lol.

Anyway a while back I was going through a phase of absolutely being in love with chipotle sauce. I thoroughly enjoyed its slightly spicy and smoky flavour and kept experimenting with it and adding it to pretty much anything. Out of that a couple of winner recipes were created of which one was Lentil & Chipotle Soup that I am going to share with you.

This is me getting overly creative with ingredients, thinking I am the next best thing in fine art food photography lol : D

How I Make it:

First and foremost, I chop the ends off and peel the carrots as I think it tastes nicer this way before quickly grating them with my food processor. Next, I roughly chop the onion and grate the garlic with a micro grater. I LOVE the micro grater as the results you get with it are wonderful, but if you don’t own a micro grater just make sure you mince your garlic very finely.

When in doubt always use garlic :D that is my motto! I looove garlic <3

I heat up the olive oil and then add the chopped onions and fry them for 2mins on a medium heat, constantly stirring until slightly golden. I then add cumin, turmeric (when you fry them they release their flavours) and garlic at the same time and fry them for about 30 secs. I then add the grated carrots and washed lentils to the mix and keep on stirring and frying them for another 2 mins before adding vegetable stock.

Use vegetable stock that you love, home made or good quality cubes or powder.

I love Kallo Organic and Marigold Vegan Bouillon Powder. Because they both have added salt I never end up using extra salt myself.

I then add some freshly ground pepper, chipotle sauce and coconut sugar and then turn up the heat and bring it to a boil. Coconut sugar is optional really but I like how it balances the flavours nicely and brings out the carrots’ sweetness a little.

When the soup starts to boil I’ll bring the heat right down and let it quietly simmer for 22-25mins stirring every now and again in the beginning and keeping a close eye for the last 7 minutes or so and stirring often as the soup has thickened and water evaporated so you want to make sure you don’t accidentally burn your soup…(yep this happened once when I gave out the recipe but didn’t mention the “keeping your eye on it business”, so since then I learned to write down everything so no more soup accidents would occur in the future…)

This makes around 4 portions and is wonderful when served with slice of fresh bread…yummy…

Did you try out this creation, if so I’d love to know how it turned out? Tag me @lustfullyvegetarian or use a #lustfullyvegetarian and I’ll love to see your version of it

Until next time

Sirle xox

The Recipe:

Lentil & Chipotle Soup

Serves 4

(Prep 10mins, Cook 30mins)

1 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 large onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, micro grated

1 tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp turmeric

3 large carrots peeled and grated

150g red split lentils

1200ml vegetable stock (I used 1200ml spring water and 2 Kallo organic stock cubes)

2 tbsp chipotle sauce

½ tsp coconut sugar

Salt & Pepper to taste if required*

1. Peel and grate the carrots, leave to the side

2. Chop onion and micro grate garlic, if you don’t have micro grater finely mince the garlic

3. Heat the oil in the pot and add chopped onions and fry for 2 mins on a medium heat until slightly golden

4. Add cumin, turmeric & grated garlic and fry for 30sec

5. Add grated carrots and washed lentils and fry for 2mins

6. Add vegetable stock, chipotle sauce & coconut sugar and turn up the heat and bring to boil

7. Once boiling reduce the heat to low and let the soup simmer for 25mins, stirring every now and again, make sure to keep an eye on the soup and keep on stirring regularly for the last 7mins as it thickens

Notes:

· If you want it less spicy use only 1 tbsp of chipotle sauce

· Coconut sugar is optional, but I like how it slightly sweetens the carrots

· I don’t use salt as the vegetable stock I use (kallo organic) is already salty enough for me. Make sure to taste to find your perfect level of sweet &salty