Super-easy – takes about 30 mins + prep
- 1 red onion or leek, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 large carrots, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and finely sliced
- about an inch of red chilli pepper, deseeded and sliced (or a pinch of dried chilli flakes)
- 1 tsp ground smoked paprika
- A litre of veggie stock (or 1 tin chopped tomatoes in juice plus fill the tin with water once or twice again, depending on the amount of veg you use)
- Veggies – all roughly chopped – of your choice, roughly one large handful prepped per portion of soup (I’d use red/orange/yellow pepper, courgette, butternut squash, sweet potato, parsnip, a couple of ribs of celery…) (if you’d rather have a brothy soup, cut to small dice rather than roughly chop)
- Big handful of dried red lentils
- a little olive oil
Method:
- Heat a little oil in a pan; add the onion, carrot, celery, fresh chilli and garlic; saute on medium heat for 5 mins.
- Add spices and cook for 30 secs.
- Add veggies and stock (and dried pulses if using), and simmer for 25 mins or until veggies are soft.
- For smooth soup, whizz through a blender; for brothy soup, you’re already there 🙂
You can also get away with just dumping everything but the oil in a pan, bring to a simmer, cook for 25 mins (makes it even more low cal/easy effort).
