Who doesn’t like a hearty pumpkin soup recipe for the coming winter?
Here’s a fun fact, I don’t think I’ve ever cooked with Pumpkin until I went vegan. Never really thought much of it to be honest, just turns into much.
But that’s because I didn’t know how to use it. Ever since I went to Portugal last year I started experimenting, using different, fresher ingredients, and pumpkin happening to be one of them.
How to make the perfect red lentil, pumpkin soup
For this recipe, I used red split lentils, which already cook into a mushy texture, as well as pumpkin, which practically dissolves in any broth you cook it in.
The truth is, this recipe was spontaneous, as is many of my vegan concoctions, and there is no right or wrong way to go about it.
This vegan pumpkin and red lentil soup is honestly the easiest thing to cook as the bread you slap in the toaster to eat alongside it, and requires only 6 main ingredients:
Pumpkin
Red Split Lentils
Onion
Stock
Pimento
Bayleaf
That’s literally it. A great way of getting in a good portion of vegan iron from the red lentils, not to mention the high vitamin A content from the abundance of pumpkin.
This soup is nutty, sweet and savoury all at once, and a fantastic easy-to-make mid week meal for the lazy vegan connoisseur.
| Prep Time | 5 Minutes |
| Cook Time | 45 Minutes |
| Passive Time | 50 Minutes |
| Servings |
People
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- 1 Tbsp olive oil For Frying
- 1 Medium Brown Onion Finely Chopped/Diced
- 1 Cup Red Lentils Rinsed
- 200 Grams Fresh Pumpkin Cubed and skin discarded
- 3 Cups Vegetable Stock Stock cube crushed and mixed in 3 cups water
- 1 Tbsp Ground Pimento
- 1 Tsp Ground Bayleaf
- Salt To taste
Ingredients
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- Heat a little oil on a saucepan, add chopped onions and cook till fragrant and slightly translucent, add Bayleaf and Pimento spices and infuse within, cook for 5-10 minutes.
- Heat water in a kettle, finely dice a stock cube and add a little to the onions, mix in the stock cube to form a paste, stir until dissolved. Add the pumpkin and red lentils, stir in and add the remaining water.
- Bring to a boil and cover and allow to simmer, for 30-40 minutes, or until stew thickens.
- Use a wooden spoon to manually mash the bigger pieces of solid pumpkin, the red lentils should naturally be melt to the mouth. Taste and adjust salt content accordingly.
- Stir and serve in a bowl with pumpkin seeds on top, with a side of good bread and olive oil drizzled on top.
No need for a hand blender as the red lentils and pumpkin combo tends to "mash" as it's cooked.
