A favorite on our table, this tasty offering is vegetarian comfort food at its best!
Makes 10-12 servings
1 pound dry brown lentils
2 quarts cold water
12 ounces diced carrots
10 ounces chopped onion
2 Tablespoons olive or safflower oil
2 large cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon black pepper
1½ teaspoons dried basil
1 large or 2 small bay leaves
1-15 ounce can diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons salt
12 ounces potato, cut into ¾” cubes (optional)
- Put the lentils and water into a stockpot, uncovered, and set over medium heat. Gently bring water to a simmer, which should take roughly half an hour depending on your stove. It is essential that you bring the lentils to temperature slowly, or else they will burst. Once they’ve reached an active simmer, cover the lentils, turn off the burner and let them sit for 1 hour.
- In a large frying pan, sauté the carrots and onion in oil on medium-high heat for 10 minutes, turning and stirring regularly to keep the onions from burning. Turn the heat down to medium-low; add the garlic, basil, black pepper and bay leaf and sauté for another 10 minutes to meld the flavors.
- Bring the lentils back to temperature. Add the sautéed veggies and simmer for an hour over low heat with the lid propped open. Stir occasionally.
- After an hour, add tomatoes and salt and simmer the stew for another 30 minutes or for as long as several hours. This stew is happy sitting on the back burner until you’re ready to dive in. If desired, add potato for the last 30 minutes of cooking; stew is done when the potatoes are just cooked. If the stew gets too thick, add another ½ cup of hot water.
- Serve with crusty bread and a variety of cheeses for a hearty autumn feast!
Copyright 2010 by Don Hogeland
For a printable version of this recipe in MSWord, click HERE
I love lentil soup when the leaves start to change colors and drop…your recipe looks really grand!!!
I will bookmark this dish as I need to include a few more vegetarian options in our meals. Thanks for the recipe. 🙂
Perfect for a fall day! Unfortunately, we’re having a genuine heat wave here in SoCal and all I want to do is drink beer! Too hot to eat or cook.
I adore lentil soup/stew and look forward to having bowls of comfort soup as soon as our early Fall heatwave is over. 😉 Good looking stew with my favorite ingredients.
This the way we do lentils for years in Greece and Iam happy to see your recipe. Try if you like next time to add a bay leaf.
And also if you have left overs from the soup, served over white rice.
Oops. My recipe does include a bayleaf, which I’ve somehow failed to mention. I’ve made the necessary correction…. Thanks, Popi!
Perfect for a rainy day!
Love this soup!!
I just love lentils. Perfect for this weather.
delicious stew
Perfect for this cold weather we’re having…
This looks delicious and perfect to usher in Fall! Can’t wait to try it.
Great dish! Congatulations on food buzz top 9!
Love me some lentil soup. I’m so glad it’s fall (even if the weather in Northern California is confused).
I am making lentil stew this week…looks delicious!
Congrats on the Top 9! It’s fall everywhere, but here!
[…] Fresh for Autumn: Hearty Lentil Stew […]
Mmm, I love lentils, this sounds great! Perfect for Fall!
Why use ounces rather than teaspoons, tablespoons, cups etc??????
I love this recipe (I’ve made it three times), and I was trying to post it on Pinterest, but all of your side pictures showed up instead of the picture of the recipe itself. Obviously, you don’t have to cater to those that use Pinterest, but I thought it was something I should mention, in case you thought about redesigning the website for any reason and decided to take that into consideration. I will continue to spread the word via old-fashioned word of mouth about this delicious recipe.
Update: I have since managed to put up a picture of the recipe with a link on Pinterest, rather than having people just click on the pin to get the link. It is a minor difference, so I hope more people find out about your recipes via that Pin. Best of luck!