Fill up on this healthy, hearty brown rice lentil soup! The temperatures keep dropping and soup is the perfect weeknight dinner! This soup only requires about 5 minutes of your time to prepare, then it just has to bubble away on the stove, giving you time to get some other things done around the house. This soup is low fat, vegan, gluten free and so darn easy!
Anyone else love soup? I love soup for so many reasons:
- It only dirties one pot and the leftovers are almost always even better the next day!
- The leftovers are perfect to take to work for lunch the next day, way better for you than those pesky frozen “diet food” lunches that never seem to satisfy anyone. Instead take something hearty, healthy and way more delicious! Just be sure to pack your soup in a glass container to reheat in the microwave. Do yourself a favor and invest in some Pyrex (affiliate link)!!
- It's so easy, no babysitting the pot, just let it do it's thing and set the timer! Perfect for after a long day in the office!
- Soup is so versatile! You can mix and match your ingredients. No brown rice? Use quinoa! No lentils? Use chickpeas or kidney beans! You can chop up whatever veggies you happen to have on hand as well!
- Soup is a great way to get extra servings of veggies into your day. Kids also seem to love soup if you give them something fun to dunk in it! May I suggest grilled cheese, hemp almond flax crackers, these amazing Pumpkin cornbread or these awesome Pumpkin Biscuits. You know I'm all about that pumpkin goodness!
- Now that fall is quickly approaching, I am looking forward to checking off activities from my 10 outdoor fall activities. Having easy recipes like this hearty brown rice lentil soup in my back pocket makes going on adventures for the day much less stressful. I know dinner can easily come together without too much effort on my part. After a day outside the last thing I want to do is stand around in the kitchen for an hour!
Brown Rice Lentil Soup Recipe Tips
This brown rice lentil soup recipe has just a few ingredients. Let me let you in on one of my secrets for preparing this in under 45 minutes and making it taste like it's been simmering all day long: Organic Vegetable Broth and Bay leaves. They are magic. I use the organic vegetable broth from my local grocery store. It smells heavenly. If you are not vegan, you could also use bone broth in this recipe, it would be a great way to add to your gut health!
Also use that Food Processor (affiliate link). This is something I need to get better at, I seem to spend so long just chopping veggies, which is so pointless when the food processor does it all for me! I chopped all the veggies for this soup in 30 seconds in the food processor. After I had all the veggies for this chopped, I also chopped up veggies for a batch of the Asian Salmon Cakes since the food processor was already dirty. If you meal prep on Sundays, don't be afraid to get this handy piece of equipment dirty. It saves SO MUCH TIME!
Hearty Brown Rice Lentil Soup
Ingredients
- 1 small white onion – chopped
- 2 stalks celery – chopped
- 2 small carrots – chopped
- 1 cup brown rice – I used jasmine brown rice
- 1 cup green lentils
- 4 cups water
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup frozen spinach
- 1/3- 1/2 cup frozen peas
Instructions
- Roughly chop veggies and put them in the food processor. Pulse the veggie until they are finely chopped but not pulverized.
- Place a large soup pot over medium heat. Spray with coconut oil or add about 1/2 tsp coconut oil to the bottom of the pot. Add veggies to the the pot and cook 2-3 minutes.
- Add the lentils, brown rice, water and veggie broth and stir.
- Add bay leaves, dried thyme and salt.
- Cover the pot and allow to come up to a boil, about 5 minutes.
- Lower the heat to low, and let simmer, covered for 30 minutes.
- Remove the lid, add the frozen spinach and frozen peas. Let cook 5 minutes.
- Serve immediately
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Nutrition Information
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What about you?
- What is your favorite fall comfort food?
- What would you serve with this? Pumpkin biscuits? Homemade crackers?
- What is your favorite soup?
Cynthia eklund
I made this soup this morning and delivered it to my daughter, at her workplace, (she has been eating vegan and vegetarian for over 2 years now.). SHe absolutely loved it, and said she could eat this at least once a week! She gives it a 5 out of 5. I offered her avacado slices, tomato slices, yogurt, sweet onions, and cilantro as garnishes. Knowing her, she must have used them all.
My house smelled great. The next batch will be for ME! Thank you for a great recipe.
Kristen
Planning on making this tonight! Do you cook the rice before putting it in, or does it cool in the pot? For now, I’ll cook it in my rice pot first. Thanks!
Sam
The lentils take about 30-40 minutes to cook which is how long the rice takes, so it’s ready without cooking the rice before you make it! If you cook the rice first, reduce the amount of liquid! Enjoy your dinner!!
Deborah Davis
This is truly one of my favorite soups! I could eat it every day! Thank you for sharing this healthy and delicious hearty brown rice lentil soup recipe with us at the Healthy Happy Green and Natural Party Blog Hop! I’m pinning and sharing. I can’t wait to see what you share with us next!
Stephanie
I cannot get enough soup this time of year, yours looks great! Thank you so much for linking up at Tasty Tuesday! This post has been pinned on the Tasty Tuesday Pinterest board! I love having you and can’t wait to see you next week!
Lou Lou Girls
I’m always so amazed by you! This looks so good! Pinned and tweeted. I appreciate you taking the time to party with us. I hope to see you on Monday at 7. Happy Monday! Lou Lou Girls
Debbie @ Coach Debbie Runs
This looks so good! I love soup, but don’t get into the mood until the weather finally cools off. Which about this time feels like never. :-)
Jess @hellotofit
Another fall season has come and gone and I STILL haven’t cooked with lentils yet. THIS WILL BE THE YEAR!
Nicole @ Foodie Loves Fitness
I love me some lentil soup! I usually like eating it with some fresh crusty bread for dipping. I actually just made minestrone soup last week because I had a cold and just needed some soup goodness, even though it was 90 degrees out!
Annmarie
Next time the temps drop I am totally making a bowl of this, YUM!
Deborah @ Confessions of a Mother Runner
I love lentil soup and I am waiting for it to cool down so I can start eating them again. YUm!
Katie @ Gettin' My Healthy On
This looks divine. I have a bag of lentils I’ve been wanting to use, and this is perfect! Also, I love the tip of using a food processor to chop the veggies. I’ve never even though about that before. So clever.
Mary Ellen @ VNutrition
This definitely looks great for fall weather! I’ll have to try it out soon. I love peas and carrots in soup – I need to use them more this fall/winter – they make everything taste more “cozy” for some reason.
Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine
I never eat soup….it’s been like 2 years no, haha! But if I were, a hearty soup/chili like lentil soup is always the go too!
Jen
Perfect – I’ve been looking for a lentil recipe or two to give to one of my nutrition coaching clients. Pinning and sharing with her!
Helene
This is going on our menu plan RIGHT NOW.