Red Lentil Spinach Soup Ready in 30 minutes!

I’m a big lover of soup…summertime, winter, it doesn’t matter. I don’t believe it has to be chilly outside to want to curl up to a good bowl of soup. Heck, I just finished a bowl of this yumminess right before writing this! It will also please the vegan lovers. Most recipes call for traditional green lentils, which are fine, but this particular soup is screaming for the red ones.  I love the flavor of them, not to mention the color red, which just so happens to be my favorite. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the multiple uses of red throughout this site. Ha! Something about red just makes everything more enjoyable.

Oh okay….back to the soup…..so, yes, try to find the red lentils which are usually in self serving bins in the organic nuts and grains section of your grocery store.  Or you can just go to a wholefoods store. The beautiful color (below) cooks away mostly so I add a healthy amount of paprika to keep the soup vibrant. It’s not screaming red, but more orangy…but that works for me.

This is the gorgeous color of the lentils before being cooked….

Recipe :  Serves 4   Prep time: 10 mins  Cook time: 20 mins    Click here for a printable version

1 cup red lentils rinsed thoroughly

3 cups organic vegetable broth

1/2 cup finely chopped red onion

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/8 teaspoon red pepper or ground chipotle chili spice

Few grinds of fresh black pepper

Put all the ingredients into a pot and stir. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, put the lid on just slightly tilted to let some steam escape and turn to simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until tender. Pour some soup in a serving bowl and top with fresh spinach and squeeze some fresh lemon juice to taste. Stir to combine everything. The heat of the soup will wilt the spinach. Adding the fresh lemon juice really brightens up the warm flavors. There you have it, red lentil soup. Mmmmm.