Lentil Tomato Soup (stovetop, instant-pot)

This quick and easy Lentil Tomato Soup is made with fresh tomatoes, veggies, and extra virgin olive oil. A nutrient-dense soup to include your 5 a day!

This lentil and tomato soup is thick and flavorful. It's the perfect healthy comfort food to enjoy during the week. You can make it in less than one hour on the stovetop or use a slow cooker or instant pot.

Table Of Contents

• Lentil Variety
• Lentils - Fakes
• Ingredients
• How To Make
• TIPS
• Serve With
• Recipe

Lentil Variety

For this lentil soup, I'm using small to medium-sized brown lentils (what we mostly use in Greece) but you can use any type you like. Like green or red lentils, as long as they're not large.

Lentils - Fakes

Fakes (lentils) are a staple food in every Greek home. There are mainly 2 ways in which Greeks like to eat lentils. One is making a soup (Fakes soupa) and the second is making a Fakorizo (lentil rice).

In most parts of Greece, lentil soup is made the old-fashioned way without tomatoes. But in northern parts of Greece, it's mostly made with tomatoes, like this soup.

Ingredients

To make this recipe for lentil soup with tomatoes you need extra virgin olive oil, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, bell pepper, ripe tomatoes, bay leaf, and thyme.

How To Make

To make this soup nice and thick we pulse the vegetables before adding them to the soup. Here's how to make it on the stovetop...

Pulse the tomatoes. First, cut the tomatoes into smaller pieces and toss them in a food processor or blender. Pulse until smooth. The ripest the tomatoes the better. You can use Roma tomatoes or cherry tomatoes for extra sweetness and a thicker texture.

Pulse the vegetables. Cut the carrot, bell pepper, and onion into small pieces and add to a food processor together with the garlic. Pulse until a smooth paste forms.

The celery I like to finely chop to give some texture to the soup. Plus, I find it complements its flavor better that way. But if you prefer you can pulse it together with the other vegetables.

Prepare the lentils. Bring lentils to a boil in plenty of water and then drain. This way you discard all dirt and pesticides.

Sautee the vegetable paste in hot olive oil and then add all of the remaining ingredients along with some hot water or if you prefer vegetable or chicken stock.

Simmer until lentils are cooked. This depends on the variety of the lentils but it usually takes about 40 minutes.

Make It Using An Instant Pot

Begin by preparing the vegetables as mentioned above. Then turn the instant-pot to SAUTE function and cook the vegetable paste for 5 minutes along with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the tomatoes, drained lentils, bay leaf, celery, thyme, 5 tablespoons olive oil, and 5 cups of hot water or stock. Season with salt and pepper.

Next, cook on HIGH PRESSURE for 15 minutes. Then allow the cooker to release pressure naturally.

Make It Using A Crock Pot / Slow-cooker

Add all of the ingredients to the crock pot along with 6 cups of water or stock. Cook for 8-10 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high.

TIPS

• If it's wintertime use a teaspoon or two of tomato paste to enhance the flavor of the tomatoes since they're not in season. Or use canned tomatoes instead of fresh.
• Add a teaspoon of smoked paprika or 1-2 fire-roasted peppers for a stronger and cozier, smokey flavor.
• If it's summertime mix in some fresh herbs like basil at the end.
• Make sure there's a long expiration date on the package of lentils to ensure freshness and also that they cook well.
• You can soak lentils for 30 minutes to 1 hour at room temperature water to make them more digestible.

Serve With

In Greece, we serve all legume soups either with some feta cheese or salt-cured fish or seafood. And sometimes sauteed Greek sausage or pickled vegetables like peppers. For this soup try these Quick Fried Peppers In Vinegar or serve with Greek Marinated Octopus as a side.

Recipe