A happy accident
Imagine the following scenario – you’re partway through cooking a standby recipe that calls for standby ingredients that you always have in your kitchen. Except, when you go to add that one ingredient you realize that you’re either going to have to turn off the stove or the oven, drive to the store and buy that vital missing link or you’re going to have to get creative. This is what happened to me a few weeks ago and I’m actually pretty glad, because it turned me on to a new version of an old recipe I’ve been making for at least ten years.
I make lentil soup pretty frequently, and I have never altered the recipe. I’ve pretty much been making the same recipe over and over and over, and couldn’t have been happier with the results. All you need is lentils, an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a can of tomatoes, a couple of bay leaves, some salt, a little oil and enough water you’ve got a hearty and delicious soup in about half an hour or forty-five minutes.
On that fateful day a few weeks ago I had all of those ingredients except for the can of tomatoes. This soup needs tomatoes. It begs for tomatoes. It just doesn’t make sense without tomatoes. I literally stood at the pantry with a quizzical look on my face for at least a minute or two wondering how on earth I was going to fix this dilemma when I spied a can of salsa.
You have to realize that I don’t like store-bought salsa all that much. I much prefer freshly made salsa with all fresh ingredients, but recently I’ve been on a chipotle kick and have been enjoying the chipotle salsa from Trader Joe’s. I grabbed the jar in my pantry, thought “Why not? I make this all the time, so what’s one bad batch of soup if this doesn’t work?” I added in a few tablespoons, then I threw caution to the wind and dumped the whole thing in there. That plus a can of corn, and I knew that this was truly a great solution to my kitchen dilemma.
Southwestern Lentil Soup
This makes enough to serve about four people.
- 1/2 pound dry lentils, sorted and rinsed
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2-4 cloves garlic, chopped coarsely
- 2 or 3 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon oil
- Water
- 1 16-ounce jar of your favorite salsa (i.e. Trader Joe’s Garlic Chipotle Salsa) or 1 16-ounce can crushed or diced tomatoes
- 1 16-ounce can sweet corn or 1 10-ounce bag frozen sweet corn
Ingredients for a southwestern style lentil soup
Sort and rinse your lentils, then put in a large cooking pot. Add water to about an inch above your lentils. You may need to add more water later, which is fine. Add your salt, oil and bay leaves and turn on the heat to medium-high.
First steps in making lentil soup
Chop up your onions and garlic.
Chopped onions and garlic
Add the onions, garlic and frozen corn to your soup and stir everything together.
Adding ingredients to vegan lentil soup
Allow it to cook for a few minutes, then pour in the jar of salsa (or can of crushed or diced tomatoes).
Adding salsa to the lentil soup
Allow the soup to simmer, and stir occasionally. At this point you’ll want to turn down the heat to about medium so that the liquid will not evaporate more quickly than the lentils have time to cook.
After about twenty minutes check the lentils to see if they have cooked through. You want to be sure that they are soft but not mushy. The liquid may have still cooked off a little bit, so you may want to add an extra cup or two to make sure it is still soupy.
Vegan lentil soup
Once the soup is done, discard the bay leaves (don’t eat them), then serve with vegan buttered bread or toast or with tortilla chips. For a creamier soup, add about a tablespoon of Vegenaise to an individual serving of soup.
Southwestern lentil soup
Do you make lentil soup? If so, how do you enjoy making it?
P.S. Check out my new vegan community on www.Lunch.com, Vegan Living. I am going to be sharing more about this in a future post, but wanted to let you in on the secret a little bit early.
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Samantha on 
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
This looks good! I have been in that position so many times. I’ve never made a southwestern soup before, but now I think I will give it a go! Looks good!
Add some minced fresh ginger .. gives it an additional spicy kick and is healthy at the same time!!
Mmmmm… Sounds delicious!
The soup sounded great however I was out of normal salsa so I used the Pineapple mango salsa from Target and it was excellent. The citrus gives it a little bit of tart and sweet and there are peppers that give it a nice little kick.
Thanks for the idea, lunch will be great all week!
That’s such an interesting idea! I have never thought to use a sweeter salsa. May have to try that at some point!
Never thought of substituting salsa for tomatoes. That would really add a flavor that the men in my family would love. Will try it!
This has become one of my favorite Lentil recipes. I’m not normally a lover of lentil soup, but this has enough flavor for me that I’ve really fallen in love with it. Thanks for the experimentation!
This looks so yummy!!!! I’m definitely going to have to try this one. My favorite is a Turkish Dill Lentil soup. I have never thought to “cream” with vegenaise…will have to try that! Whenever I want to “cream” something, I blend cooked short grain brown rice with some water and add that mixture to the soup. It makes it hearty and creamy :)
My recipe also called for potatoes and carrots. I guess you would have included them if you liked them. Oh! and I’d add a few drops of Tabasco. Didn’t include garlic. I don’t know why but I never did.