
A lentil soup is the perfect beginner’s soup. For reasons that seem silly to me now, making soup was initially an intimidating task. There were some pretty simple, basic details that eluded me. Like, that most of a soup is just stock. Hell, I didn’t know what stock was.
Once I realized that soup is essentially stock plus seasoned veggies that you sauté, I felt free to finally shift into soup mode. To get started, I followed my wife’s lead and learned to make a simple lentil soup. Over time, I started making it my own with the addition of smoked paprika and potatoes because, well, I love potatoes. It’s the perfect merging of my Ashkenazi and Irish heritage.
The recipe is below complete with the requisite measurements. But as most home cooks will tell you, I don’t actually measure things when I cook. I listen to my gut and taste test. The key is to make sure you have enough stock for the soup. I make my own vegetable stock that can fill up my dutch oven. Although I say 4-5 cups in the recipe, I generally just pour enough stock into the dutch oven so that it almost fills it up because it’s going to reduce later on. Also, I like my lentil soup spicy so I go a bit heavier with the cayenne pepper. Play around and make it your own!