Red lentil soup with sausage chips

by | Nov 11, 2022 | Soups

Red lentils are an easy-to-cook and versatile legume. They don’t need to be soaked before cooking, the texture quickly becomes soft and creamy, so red lentils are most often used in soups and curries. This red lentil soup is an inexpensive way of getting a wide variety of nutrients, as lentils are packed with B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, and potassium, and they are also a great source of iron and protein.

Red lentil soup with sausage chips
Red lentil soup with sausage chips – photo:zserbo.com

Ingredients:

  • 250 g (~8 3/4 oz) red lentils (they don’t need to be soaked)
  • 1 tbsp lard
  • 150 g (~5 1/3 oz) smoked sausage, sliced
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 medium carrots, diced
  • 2 medium tomato, peeled and diced
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 tsp ground caraway seeds
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1,5 liters (~6 1/3 cups) stock (or 1,5 liters / 6 1/3 cups water + 1-2 stock cubes)
  • 3 heaping tbsp sour cream

In a pot heat lard, add sausage slices and fry until crispy. Transfer the sausages onto a plate and set aside. Add chopped onions to the hot lard and sauté until translucent. Stir in carrots and tomatoes, and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes. Add minced garlic, red lentils and bay leaf, then pour in stock. Season with salt, ground black pepper and ground caraway seeds. Over medium low heat cook for 20-25 minutes until all vegetables are tender. Turn off the heat, remove the bay leaf and purée the soup with an immersion blender. In a small bowl mix together sour cream and some hot soup, then pour the mixture into the soup. Serve with the sausage chips.

(Peeling tomatoes: cut a shallow X on the bottom of each tomato. Carefully lower them into boiling water until the skin begins to peel back, then place them into a bowl of cold water. Let the tomatoes sit in the bath for 3-4 minutes or until you see the peels shrivel and start to peel off. Peel the skins off with your hands.)

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Hungarian cottage cheese

This is what Hungarian túró looks like

You often ask me what kind of cottage cheese (or curd cheese or farmer's cheese - call it what you want) I use in the recipes. In Hungary the store-bought cottage cheese is dry and crumbly as you can see in the picture. So if a recipe calls for túró, I mean this type. If you can't obtain túró, you can try to make your own from whole milk. Click on the link below.

Metric system vs cup

In Hungary metric units are in use, all the recipes on this website are based on this system, so a kitchen scale is necessary. Since I’m not familiar with cup as a measurement unit, I convert grams to cups by using an online converter. The values in brackets, therefore, are only approximate volumes, so, please, double-check them before you start cooking.

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