How to Make a Cozy French Lentil Soup
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Who doesn’t love a warm cozy soup on a chilly, overcast day? It’s just a great way to warm up and get comfortable. Well, today we’re making a really great French lentil soup you’ll want every time the clouds roll in.
This delicious comfort food is packed full of vegetables, fragranced with white wine, and spiced with parsley, coriander seed, bay leaf, and a little saffron. Trust me when I say this soup is refined with big, interesting flavor.
Starting French Lentil Soup with Mirepoix
Since we’re making a French lentil soup, I’m leaning into the “French” theme and using a lot of fancy words. The first will be mise en place. This simply means having all the ingredients prepared before you begin cooking. So, to start, we need to dice celery, carrots, and yellow onion.
Ready for another French word? Together, celery, carrots, and onion are referred to as mirepoix. This is a classic aromatic combination to set up the flavors in many fantastic dishes. For our soup, though, we’re adding a nod to French-Creole cooking by adding a green bell pepper.
In the Deep South of the United States of America, French descendants swear by “the trinity” which is a play on mirepoix using green bell pepper, celery, and onion.
So, for our soup, I like to think that we’re using the Three Musketeers plus D’Artagnan. It really just works, flavorwise, and frankly, it bulks up our soup. And don’t forget the garlic.
To sum up, our mise en place includes diced green pepper, celery (including the leaves), carrots, and onions, and minced garlic. I also measure out my lentils, herbs, and spices at this stage.
Building Flavors for Great Soup
Now, our vegetables are prepared and the ingredients are measured and ready to go. So, the first step is to heat a soup pot over medium heat and add olive oil. We want the olive oil hot so it fries our veggies a little. This is the first step in building flavor.
Our mirepoix/trinity blend is going to sauté in oil over heat until they start to soften. I recommend using a stainless steel pot for this because the veggies will stick a little to the bottom. As they stick, they leave behind what is called fond. This is a caramelized flavor powerhouse that gives soups a deeper “mmmm what IS that?” flavor.
Once you’re happy with the softened, browned state of your veggies, give the garlic a little time to warm up. Garlic can burn easily so you don’t want to cook it for too long. The point is simply to remove the raw flavor and let it sweeten up a little.
Now, I add in my lentils and deglaze the pan with white wine. To deglaze a pan, you add the wine and use it to scrub the fond from the bottom of the pan, stirring all that browned flavor into the veggies. I give that a little simmer time so everyone can get to know each other before adding in the broth.
For this soup, I prefer to use vegetable broth because it keeps it vegan-friendly. You could, however, use beef or chicken bone broth for protein and bolder flavor.
The Herbs and Spices for French Lentil Soup
While there are definitely “traditional” French herbs and spices, we’re going to play a little, too. So, for our soup, we’ll add warmth with a little cumin, brightness with coriander seed, and a little bit of a floral note with saffron. Additionally, I like bay leaves for herby depth and chives to freshen up and highlight the onion flavor. And of course, you need salt.
This is another area where you might ignore my recipe and choose your own adventure. Use a couple of teaspoons of Herbes de Provençe, or even chop fresh parsley, chives, and tarragon.
The goal here is to make a soup that has a bright, warm flavor and makes you feel a little sophisticated even when you’re wearing pinky fuzzy socks and sweatpants.
What are French Lentils?
French lentils are a type of green lentil that is smaller with a slightly darker green color. They taste about the same. The big deal, though, is that they won’t go mushy in your soup. They hold their shape. It’s just kind of a fun and different way to present lentil soup.
So, if you just have green lentils, please go ahead and make this soup. It will work great! The little French babies are a lot of fun, though, so if you can find them, yay!
Storing Leftover Soup
We don’t always have enough mouths to feed a great big pot of soup, so there’ll probably be leftovers. I really like to portion my leftover soup into pint jars. A pint of soup is a great lunch to grab out of the fridge and heat up during the workweek.
French lentil soup also freezes nicely, but do not freeze it in a glass container. I just recently had a jar of frozen chili shatter in my freezer, and it was a pain in the butt.
To reheat your leftovers from the fridge, pour the jar of soup into a bowl, cover with a paper towel, and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir, test the temperature, and microwave more if you need to.
From frozen, let it defrost in the fridge, and then either reheat it in a pot or in the microwave as noted just above.
The Soup Making Toolkit
You don’t need anything too fancy to make some French lentil soup, but as usual, here is the toolkit:
Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!
French Lentil Soup
Equipment
- 4 quart pot
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup large onion diced
- 1 cup large green bell pepper diced
- 1 cup carrots diced
- ½ cup celery diced (including leafy greens)
- 2 Tbsp garlic minced
- 1 cup French green lentils
- 1 cup dry white wine optional
- 32 oz vegetable broth
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tsp dried chives
- 2 tsp pink Himalayan salt
- 1 tsp ground coriander seed
- 1 tsp cracked black pepper
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- 1 pinch saffron (like 10 strands)
- 1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a medium soup pot until it slides easily around the pot.
- Add in the chopped onion, pepper, celery (including the greens), and carrots. Sauté until soft. Add in the garlic, and cook for an additional minute to reduce the garlic's bitterness.
- Add in the green lentils. Stir until combined. Add in the wine, and simmer for 5 minutes to cook off some of the alcohol.
- Pour in 32 ounces of vegetable broth. Add in bay leaves, dried chives, ground coriander, salt, pepper, cumin, and a pinch of saffron. Stir to incorporate.
- Cover and simmer on low for 1 hour.
- Uncover and stir in the white wine vinegar.
- Serve with a hearty loaf of bread and fresh butter.
