Updated March 2025
No joke, this is probably my all-time favorite soup that I’ve ever created, and I make it several times a year. It’s simple to make and warms up any chilly day!
Sausage and Lentil Soup
Serves 6-8
Ingredients:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, diced
6-8 organic baby carrots (or 2-3 regular-sized carrots), diced
2 organic celery stalks, diced
2 garlic cloves (optional), minced
3 Sweet Italian sausages (pork, chicken, or vegan), removed from casing
1 can tomato sauce
32 oz beef stock
14-15 oz water
1 1/2 cups organic red lentils
1/3 bag fresh organic baby spinach
5-6 smaller gold or red potatoes, diced
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Add the extra-virgin olive oil to the pot, and add in the onion, carrot, celery, salt, and pepper. Turn the heat on medium and saute a couple minutes. Add the minced garlic and stir. Cook until the onion is slightly transparent and the carrots and celery are slightly softened.
Next, add the sausage (removed from the casing), and saute for 3-5 mins until it’s slightly browned and you’ve infused some flavor into the veggies. You want the sausage to be chunky but easy enough to eat, so make sure the chunks are not too big. Note that you can use pre-cooked sausage if preferred, and in that case, cut it into chunks prior to adding and saute for 2-3 mins instead of 3-5 mins.
Chop up the potatoes into small chunks and add them to the pot. Stir for 2-3 minutes to allow the potatoes to soak up a little bit of the flavor from the sausage and mirepoix.
Add a can of tomato sauce and the beef stock and stir. Fill up the tomato sauce can with water, and add that in for some extra liquid (if you like the soup thicker, you can omit this step, but you’ll have to tend the potatoes a little more closely).
Let it cook for about 10 minutes. Wash the lentils in a strainer and add them to the pot. Cook on a low boil/simmer for another 15-20 minutes, stirring every couple minutes to make sure the lentils don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Cook until the potatoes are fork tender. Add some fresh spinach at the last minute, letting the leaves wilt, and voila!, it’s done.
Note: To make this vegan, use Sweet Italian style vegan sausage and veggie stock. It will be a little lighter as far as the taste goes, but you can also choose to make the carrots chunkier or add in other veggies to bulk it up!
Enjoy!
Jen
Recent Comments