Fit Food: Easy Crock Pot Lentil Soup

Nom nom nom! That’s the sound I made when I tasted my soup after it had been cooking in all of its veggie goodness overnight!

In my totally humble opinion, this is my best lentil soup recipe to date! I have been fiddling around with different flavor combinations, and I think I finally achieved exactly the flavor I was looking for.

As I may have mentioned on here before (maybe not?), lentil soup is absolutely my favorite type of soup. I’m pretty picky about my lentil soup, and while I should maybe be a little embarrassed by how picky I am, I’m really not. You see, lentil soup has been my favorite soup since I was really young, so I’ve tried so many different types of lentil soup, and have pretty much settled into what I expect out of my soup. First and foremost, lentil soup cannot be runny. I need it to be thicker, almost like a stew. The vegetables are crucial to the flavor. I don’t care much for lentil soup recipes which require celery, or those which require you to roast the vegetables before adding them to the soup. Finally, any lentil soup that gets my stamp of approval has to have spinach. I don’t know what it is, but something about spinach really elevates the flavor of lentil soup for me. Now that I’ve spelled out the qualities I look for in a lentil soup, let me get to the real reason why you’re still sticking around: my lentil soup recipe!

Ingredients:

1lb lentils
2 32-ounce cartons of chicken stock (can substitute for vegetable stock to make it entirely vegetarian)
8 ounces of fresh spinach
1 medium red onion, diced
1 cup of grape tomatoes, quartered
1 cup sliced carrots
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tsp Kosher salt
1 tsp ground rainbow peppercorns (can you regular black peppercorns)
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 pinches of cayenne pepper (can use 1 pinch instead)

Recipe Note: I like to cut the garlic, carrots, and tomatoes a little chunkier for my soups. They shrink so much during the cooking process! I like to be able to see them when it’s all done cooking. Additionally, I keep the spinach leaves whole. They absorb so much flavor and help pull this dish together.

Directions: