Jessica's Turkish Spinach and Lentil Soup

"This is my variation of a soup recipe from Sundays at Moosewood. It's always a hit when I make it and I once even had an offer to package it and sell it in a New York City coffee shop."
 
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Ready In:
1hr 10mins
Ingredients:
16
Serves:
8-10
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ingredients

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directions

  • Rinse lentils and bring to a boil in 5 cups salted water or stock. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer, covered for 40 minutes.
  • While lentils boil, in a separate stock pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and sauté onions and the optional bacon. When the onions just begin to soften, add garlic, cayenne, bay leaves, cumin, coriander and chili powder. Cook for a few minutes, but don't allow garlic to brown.
  • Add tomatoes and crush with a spoon to your desired consistency. If lentils are ready, add them to the tomato mixture now. If not, take tomatoes off heat and wait for lentils.
  • Once lentils have been added to the tomatoes, simmer for 15 minutes over medium heat. Add salt and pepper to taste. You may also want to add some more spices if you like a little more kick to it.
  • Add frozen spinach and cook another five minutes. If using fresh spinach, only cook for two minutes.
  • If wanted, serve with a dollop of Greek yogurt or sour cream.
  • The lentils do soak up a lot of liquid, so for reheating, you may need to add more stock.

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Reviews

  1. Delicious! easy and very tasty. I left out the bacon and served with a dollup of sour cream and it was lovely, thanks for the recipe
     
  2. This is good. It is spicy! Next time, I might leave out the cayenne and instead pierce and put in a whole jalapeno for a mellower spice and flavor. I also used plain yogurt in place of sour cream.
     
  3. Really enjoyed this soup!! I did cut the spices in half for dh, and it was still spicy enough for me. I left out the bacon, but next time I may sprinkle crisp bacon on the sour cream. The sour cream is a must add for me. I also left out the salt, as there was salt in the broth, but did add some pepper.Thanks for posting!
     
  4. YUMMY!! I made this with 5C of water, and omitted the bacon slices. I used a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, and fresh baby spinach. I froze it in single serving sizes & had my first one today w/1T of sour cream mixed it. This was REALLY GOOD! I'm not a spicy food fan...and without the sour cream this had too much heat for me to really enjoy it...but the sour cream tempered the spice PERFECTLY! Nice, thick, hearty soup....was just right for lunch with a whole wheat bagel on this cold rainy day! Thanks for sharing!
     
  5. I just tried this ronight and it was excellent. I didnt have any coriander so I did it without that. It was not like the lentil soups that I remember in Turkey which were always made from red lentils, however, I don't rate my recipes by authenticity but by taste and this sure tastes GREAT!!! Next time I'll add then coriander and some lemon at the end. I can see why they wanted to package it.
     
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Tweaks

  1. This is good. It is spicy! Next time, I might leave out the cayenne and instead pierce and put in a whole jalapeno for a mellower spice and flavor. I also used plain yogurt in place of sour cream.
     

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