This is a hearty, tasty and very easy lentil soup. It may not even require a trip to the grocery store. In fact, you don’t even have to follow the recipe exactly. If you don’t have one of the ingredients, you can leave it out or use its nearest substitute. But you’ll likely have most of the ingredients on hand.

Recently I had some odds and ends in the refrigerator I needed to use up, which is a perfect time for soup! (It was also cold outside, which is another good excuse to make soup.) I had a bag of lentils, a little less than a pound of pork sausage, and some veggies. Perfect!

Lentils are a budget-friendly nutritious food that keep for a long time in the pantry and provide a base for so many different flavors. Unlike beans, they don’t require any soak time, which makes them super convenient for meals in a hurry.

Lentil Soup Veggies

You can make your lentil soup with a variety of vegetables! If you don’t have an ingredient included in my recipe below, leave it out or replace it with a near substitute. Here’s a list of vegetables I usually choose from when I make lentil soup:

• Onions – yellow, sweet vidalia, green onion, even red onion could work! I love onions and these are often the first vegetable I add, but if you don’t love them, you can leave them out.
• Celery
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Bell peppers
• Kale
• Spinach
• Green beans
• Corn
• Summer squash

The list could go on. Generally, firm vegetables like a mirepoix of carrots, onion, and celery along with garlic can be sauteed in the grease from whichever meat you used.

How to Season Lentil Soup

Like so many warm, hearty winter soups, lentil soup seasoning comes primarily from the ingredients you’re cooking together, but some spices just go great with this collection of ingredients.

The onions, carrots, celery, garlic and broth make up a delicious foundation of flavors. Here are other seasonings you can use to make the lentil soup recipe your own.

• Salt or salt substitute
• Black pepper
• Bay leaves
• Thyme
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Oregano
• Paprika
• Cumin
• Curry powder
• Turmeric
• Lemon juice or zest
• Red pepper flakes or cayenne

On their own, lentils don’t contribute a lot of flavor and like beans they serve as a blank slate for the wonderful seasonings you are going to add to them. Use seasonings you have and like.

How to Make Sausage Lentil Soup

Start by preparing your vegetables. Chop an onion, a large stalk of celery, and a couple of small carrots. Press or mince some garlic (or grab the garlic powder from your pantry). If you have some nice crisp kale, this would be good too, but I didn’t have any, and the soup was delicious even without it. Next, scrub a few russet potatoes and peel, then chop. Grab any remaining veggies you need to chop and have them ready by the stovetop.

Next, let’s cook the protein. Brown your smoked sausage, ground pork sausage or bacon over medium heat in a large soup pot on the stove. When it’s done, assess your grease situation: if you have about a tablespoon or so, you’re good. If there’s a lot more grease, you’ll want to drain some of it off, and if there’s less than a tablespoon, you might want to add just a bit of oil and let it heat up to sauté your vegetables.

Toss your onion, carrots, garlic and celery into the soup pot and stir occasionally while they get tender. If the sausage starts to get too brown, you may want to turn the heat down to medium/low or you’ll have to stand there stirring it the whole time so it doesn’t burn. The vegetables will take around five minutes to cook, and it should smell awesome at this point – especially if everyone is hungry!

While the onion and carrots are cooking, round up some canned tomatoes. Diced, stewed, or whole canned tomatoes will all work equally well, although if you use whole canned tomatoes, you’ll want to break them up a bit in the pot so they’re in smaller pieces. (You can use fresh tomatoes, but if you’re making sausage lentil soup in the winter time, canned tomatoes are easier to come by.)

Next, rinse a cup of dry lentils and add them to the pot with the tomatoes and two quarts (8 cups) of water or chicken broth. I used the eight cups of water plus 4 chicken bouillon cubes. If you do the same, make sure not to add salt to the soup. Those cubes are practically made of salt.

Drop in a bay leaf and let the soup come up to a boil, then turn down the heat, cover the pot, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Finally, add your chopped, peeled potatoes and cook until they are tender, which will be 10-15 minutes, depending on how small you chopped them. (Smaller dices of potato will cook more quickly than large ones.)

Before serving, you can taste it to see if it needs any salt or pepper. It would be great served with crackers or slices of crusty buttered bread.

Related Links:

Smoked Sausage Meal Ideas

How to cook beans in the Instant Pot

More Soup Recipes

Easy Instant Pot Red Beans and Rice with Smoked Sausage