We eat lentils every day. It started as a experiment to fend off some chronic, albeit borderline, anemia; would the high iron and protein of lentils stop the steady red-blood-cell-count decline I’d experienced over the years since going vegan? (Before you get your panties in a twist, I’m not suggesting WFPB diets are deficient; I was also anemic in high school, so it’s just as likely it’s lady-cycle issue than it was a diet-change one.) To test the theory, I decided to eat lentils every day for 6 months and see what happened at my next blood test. ::drum roll:: for the first time in my entire life history of blood tests, I wasn’t even borderline anemic; I was in the healthy range!

So now we eat lentils every day. “We” because if I’m cooking, Jason’s probably having it too. But, he skips days from time to time to make more room for other legumes and/or he likes. Typically we make 1-1.5 dry cups of lentils every day, depending on how hungry we are, and at serving time we split the calories of our meals somewhere between 65/35 and 55/45 to account for the fact that Jason is much larger than I am. (PS: I hate that restaurants only serve meals in one size. Humans come in lots of sizes! Jason and I should not be eating the same amount of food, and—largely because I have no self control and the served portions are typically boy size—I always end up eating too much. That’s why Asia is great, portions are smaller, and I can just eat a whole dish while Jason orders two—giving him a turn at the eat-just-a-little-too-much wheel.)

Anyway about half the time we make lentils just lentils—like lentils and water only—and the other half is some variation of this soup recipe. Please enjoy.

Lentil Soup

Our approach to soup is very, very forgiving. The key take away here is not the vegetable ingredients, you can use whatever you have on hand. Instead what makes the soup special is it's use of added minerals. The calcium, magnesium, potassium mix we add to the broth seems to compensate for the lack of added salt in the dish. Before experimenting with added minerals, our SOS-free soups always tasted flat and watery. Now they have the body of "normal" soup. Yum.

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 45

Rest Time 30

Total Time 1 35

Servings 2 People

Equipment

1 Stainless steel soup pot

Ingredients

1 cup dry lentils green or brown preferred
1 tsp calcium citrate powder (roughly 1g calcium)
1 tsp magnesium malate powder (roughly 400mg magnesium)
.5 tsp potassium citrate powder (roughly 1g potassium)
1 tbsp onion powder or a half an onion, chopped
1 tbsp garlic powder or 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 medium zucchini or yellow squash, chopped
4 large white mushrooms or 1 tbsp of mushroom powder
2 cups other veggies you have around mix of kale, collards, onion, tomato, celery, carrot, beet, etc.
1 tbsp crushed red pepper (optional)
1 tbsp spices you like (optional) turmeric, ginger, black seed, galangal, black pepper, or paprika, for example
4-5 cups filtered water

Instructions

Put it all in a pot and bring to boil.
Let simmer for a half hour.
Let sit for a half hour. Then remember to stir it up before you serve because sometimes the calcium sinks.

Notes

We like to sprinkle on a tbsp or so of nutritional yeast and Szechwan pepper flakes at the table.

Keyword Lentils, SOS-free, Soups, WFPB