After Christmas people can be left a little sluggish and with a bit of a cheese hangover, this is a great spicy soup for perking up your digestive system and super filling too. It’s really easy to make and has a lot of dry ingredients and tins. Much like most spicy bean and lentil soups it has a tomato base, sweetness from carrots and can be a great base for almost any meat to be added.
Ingredients
2 chopped onions
3 cloves chopped garlic
1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tin of chickpeas, drained
1 tin of baked beans, drained
1 large chopped carrot
80g puy lentils
80g red lentils
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
grind black pepper
1.5 liters of water
Fat-free fromage frais
Gently fry your onions and garlic, once they are softened throw in your carrots, let them fry for a few minutes, then put in your tinned tomatoes, baked beans, drained chickpeas and give it a good stir.
Add your lentils, give it another good stir. Then top up with your water and add your stock cubes. Sprinkle in your herbs and spices. It’s a pretty forgiving dish so you can add plenty of different herbs, and extra spices if you like.
I let mine simmer for about 1.5 hours and stirred now and then, you might need to add more water when the lentils thicken up.
To serve, plonk some fat-free fromage frais on the top, grind on the pepper and stir. The yoghurt gives a creamy texture and cuts through the spices. It’s also great for dipping huge crusty bread in.
For slow cooker: Prepare all the ingredients, shove in the slow cooker, leave it for 8 hours, eat it.
