Lentil Bean (and Sausage) Soup

Can you keep a secret? This recipe was given to me by my vegan aunt. If she were not still alive, she would roll over in her grave to know I added sausage to this soup, but luckily she is alive and doesn't use the Internet, so well, if you can keep a secret, she'll never know.

Just add 1/2 pound browned sausage and use as much chicken broth as desired in place of water for more meaty flavor.

There you have the original list of ingredients. My carnivorous soul adds sausage and chicken broth to the list because it reminds me of my favorite soup at my favorite restaurant. I fell in love with it the first time my spoon introduced it to my lips.

It's called Sausage and Lentil Soup and it's found at Carrabba's Italian Grill. Each bowl has just enough heat to make your tongue tingle and nose run. (If you're lucky enough to live near a Carrabba's, go there. Soon. Order the zucchini fries, the Chicken Bryan, and get this soup as your side choice. You'll never regret that hour in food heaven.)

When I received this recipe from my aunt it finally dawned on me that I could copy that Sausage and Lentil Soup recipe. I provided the link above to another recipe claiming to be a replica of Carrabba's, because that's what I do. These recipes are quite similar. If you want to try this one, it's simple and great!

First, behold the end result, to entice you.

Directions:
Rinse lentil beans then soak in hot tap water for 30 minutes at room temperature. While beans are soaking, prepare ingredients that need chopping.

Then, vegetarians, skip this next fatty step.

Brown 1/2 pound sausage over medium-high heat. Reserving grease in pan, remove meat and set aside. Add onion to pan and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, until barely browned with grease. Remove onions. With the little remaining grease, brown the rice over medium heat until it browns, about 7 minutes, just for fun. Or don't, grease-party pooper.

Drain soaked lentils. A handy trick for draining the lentils without using a strainer:

Using the lid of the large soup pot you'll be filling in a minute, place it over the bowl of lentils. As you tip the bowl, water will flow through the lentils that catch against the lid. Worked like a charm. The soaked lentils can easily be damaged, so the less dumping and strainer-shaking to drain the better.

Pour 10 cups water/broth (don't use ALL broth; exchange up to 4 cups water with broth. I've used none and up to 2 and both were great.) and lentils into large soup pot. Add remaining ingredients. Add 2 tsp salt before boiling. My aunt says add it all at the end, to taste, but when I've done that, I ended up adding about 2 Tbsp salt before I could taste anything, then when it settled in, it was too salty. So, add some for starters, then the rest (or more) to taste at the end.

I've made this recipe using just spinach or parsley and both versions are delicious. I'd recommend chopping the spinach up before adding because otherwise its full, limp length when it's cooked hangs off the spoon and whips hot broth everywhere which isn't cool. Most recently I used parsley. I'd forgotten how wonderful fresh parsley is.

For 2 cups of fresh parsley, grab a bundle in your fist and if the stems have about the same circumference as a spice bottle, that should be about right.

Remember 1 stalk of celery is not 1 rib. A stalk is the WHOLE bundle. If you don't celebrate celery, use less than the whole stalk, as desired. 

 Make life easy on yourself. Use a package (about 8-ounces) of shredded carrots.

Pretty much, with this soup you can add more of your favorite ingredient or cut out what you detest. Unless you hate lentils. I can't imagine why such a person would read to this point, so let's move on, lentil lovers.

With all ingredients stirred together, bring soup to a boil over medium heat with pot uncovered. Reduce heat to low, cover pot, and simmer for 1 hour. Remove from heat and add remaining salt, to taste. Serve and be merry!

If you get ambitious and want to double the recipe for freezing portions (it freezes great!), you're going to need two pots. That makes it pretty easy to double, you know—same recipe twice in two pots. . . .

And to freeze, first make sure you let the soup cool to room temperature in 2 hours or less. This can be accelerated by dividing the soup from deep pots to shallow dishes—for example the dishes you intend to freeze the soup in. I scored a find at the local secondhand store for these 1-cup screw-lid containers.

Since the 1-cup container lids weren't perfectly leak-proof, I screwed each lid on with a square of wax paper to fill the seal. 

Out of a double batch of this recipe I filled about 15 1-cup containers and about two 9-cup (I think) containers—a lot of soup! A lot of quick and easy and delicious winter lunches stacked in the freezer! Thaw at room temperature or in warm water or on microwave defrost setting and then reheat in microwave 1 to 2 minutes.

Off you go now. Taste the adventure!