I wasn’t sure if this day would ever come but I can confidently say that my nearly two year turkey sandwich lunch obsession has ended. My favorite combination was Nature’s Own Honey Wheat Bread, Duke’s Mayo, sliced avocado, Applegate turkey, a slice of cheese and bread and butter pickles. I ate hundreds of them. I am finally ready for a break.
Lucky for me that soup season is FINALLY here. I made my first pot of soup this week and it was so good that I’m here today to share the recipe with you.
WARMING LENTIL + SWEET POTATO SOUP
This warming lentil and sweet potato soup is everything that I want a lunch soup to be. It’s warming and comforting while also being healthy and not too heavy. This soup is friendly for many dietary preferences including vegetarian/vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, etc.
I got the idea for this soup from a recipe I saw while thumbing through a Real Simple magazine when I was at my grandmother’s last weekend. The recipe served as the inspiration for this soup but I took it and ran with it, which is pretty much my mode of operating when it comes to cooking. 😉
One thing I loved from the Real Simple recipe was combining the onions, carrots and garlic in a food processor (I used my Vitamix) before adding them to the pan to sauté. I loved having the aromatics so finely chopped, they were almost on the verge of being pureed. I felt like this let them almost “melt” into the soup if that makes sense, instead of having pieces of onions and carrots. I will definitely be processing/blending my aromatics again for soup recipes like this one.
The warming spices here are a blend of cumin, cinnamon and coriander. Next time I make this soup, I will also try adding a teaspoon of turmeric. You’d think there was some in there already when you look at the yellow color of the soup!
The Real Simple recipe did not include sweet potatoes but I had a large sweet potato sitting on my counter and I knew it would play well with other changes I was planning to make to the soup. At the end of cooking, you stir in lime zest, juice and cilantro and I love these flavors paired with sweet potato. There is a lot of lime and cilantro flavor here, which I am all about, but feel free to dial back on the lime juice. You might start with 1-2 tablespoons instead of the juice of a whole half a lime. Feel free to play around with the amount of spice/seasoning in this soup. It’s forgiving!
This warming lentil and sweet potato soup comes together relatively quickly as far as soup is concerned. It’s ready in under one hour. And as expected, the reheated leftovers are wonderful. It’s extra delicious served alongside a crusty toasted bread. I have been enjoying it with avocado toast on homemade sourdough.
Here is the recipe!
