Red lentil tomato soup with pickle brine (because sometimes going to the store is hard)

A bowl of red lentil tomato soup.

Hey, team bean. It's been a while! Here's a family favorite.

Originally this recipe was a nice, summery thing. But it was kind of a miserable winter here in Chicago, and I've been cooking from the pantry. A lot.

So today's post was born on a very cold day a few weeks back, when I wanted a bowl of soup, but had to make due with what I had on-hand. It's damned tasty.

Scroll to the end for some springtime suggestions!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup red lentils
  • 1 smallish potato (1/4# or so before peeling, optional)
  • 1/2 onion
  • 2 ribs celery
  • 2 medium carrots
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1" ginger
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper (preferably white pepper, see below)
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 14 ounces canned tomatoes
  • Water
  • 2 teaspoons fish sauce
  • 2 teaspoons soy sauce
  • Dill pickle brine

Tools

  • A small saucepan
  • A medium-sized pot

Steps

First, cook a pot of lentils

The best thing about lentils is that they cook quickly. (And have a wonderful texture! And they taste delicious! And they're good for you! Lentils are just really super.)

So, why pre-cook them? Honestly, you don't need to. You can just throw them into the pot with your broth and veg. But I'm in the habit of cooking my beans (or in this case, technically, legumes) ahead of time.

Rinse your lentils, and toss them into a small saucepan. If you've got a small potato, peel and grate it into the pot with the lentils. (We're grating it because we want the potato to dissolve into the soup, and turn the broth silky smooth.)

Red lentils and shredded potatoes in a pot.

Cover everything with a substantial amount of water. (At least an inch of water covering everything, maybe more, but it doesn't matter too much.) Add a healthy pinch of salt and a bay leaf, and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring semi-frequently so that nothing sticks to the pot and you don't boil-over. (If you used a potato, it'll get foamy.)

(If you wanna get fancy, feel free to add some more flavor to the pot. Think things that are easy to remove when they're cooked: a whole, unpeeled clove of garlic, a couple green onions, a sprig of thyme, some fresh parsley, a hunk of carrot... really, whatever you've got lying around. It's not necessary, but it'll taste good!)

Simmer the lentils until they're soft and on their way to falling apart. Depending on the age of your lentils, this might take a half hour or more. Meanwhile...

Chopped carrots, onions, celery, garlic and ginger, in a bowl.

Chop and sauté

Now that you've got your lentils simmering, prep the veg. I like the vegetables in this soup to be visible but pretty small and scoopable. Bigger than a lentil, but smaller than a raisin... corn-sized?

Anyhoo, chop half of an onion, a couple ribs of celery, and a couple carrots. In addition, finely mince a few cloves of garlic and an inch or so of ginger.

Put your medium-sized pot (I use my everyday bean pot — a dutch oven) over medium heat, add a few glugs of olive oil, and toss in all the veg, garlic and ginger. Add a pinch of salt, and freshly ground pepper — white pepper if you've got it handy.

What's the deal with white pepper? It's the same as black pepper, just without the dark, wrinkly outer coating. Peppercorns are little fruits and the black part is the dried skin. Both taste great, though they taste a little different, and for this recipe we're going with white pepper solely for visual purposes. Feel free to substitute freshly-ground black pepper, or pre-ground white pepper if you've got that handy. I can't recommend pre-ground black pepper, but if that's all you've got, it'll still be a good soup!

We're not looking to brown the veg, just to soften everything. Stirring occasionally, that'll take 5-10 minutes.

A bowl of canned tomatoes, plus containers of pickles, paprika and white pepper.

Add the paprkia and tomatoes

While the vegetables are softening, crack open a can of tomatoes — the best you can find. (I usually buy 28oz cans of whole tomatoes in juice, use half of the can for this recipe, and freeze the rest for another day.) If your tomatoes are whole, break them up with a spoon, or maybe a potato masher. I like smallish chunks... grape-sized? Your preference.

Once the veg looks soft, add a bay leaf and a teaspoon of paprika (smoked paprika would be nice, but I'm going with plain paprika today), stir it in and cook for a minute or two longer, until it darkens a bit and you see some color in your oil.

Add the tomatoes, and a couple cups of water. (I just bring my empty tomato can over to sink, add some water, and slosh it around to get the remaining juice out.) Scrape any brown bits off the bottom of the pot and bring everything up to a simmer.

A pot with broth, vegetables and red lentils.

Combine, season and simmer

By now your lentils ought to be cooked. Dump them, along with their cooking liquid — now a tasty broth — into your pot with the vegetables, tomatoes, etc. Add a cup more water if everything doesn't look soupy enough.

Season the soup with a couple teaspoons each of fish sauce and soy sauce, plus today's special ingredient: dill pickle brine.

I like to buy my pickles from the Balkan aisle at my weird little grocery store. They're pleasantly sour with a little sugar for balance. If you've got deli pickles, they might be very sour with no sugar. So this is gonna vary!

Add the brine to the pot one spoonful at a time, and taste after each. With my moderately-sour, slightly-sweet pickles, I used around 6 tablespoons of brine. I want this soup to taste a little bit acidic, but not overwhelmingly so. If your pickles aren't sweet at all, you might want to add a pinch or two of sugar — especially if your tomatoes weren't very sweet. But this isn't a sweet-and-sour soup. The sugar is here to balance the other flavors, not to make the broth taste overtly sweet.

Simmer everything together for an hour or so. Honestly, it'll be pretty good after like 15 minutes, but I like to give it a little time. Do what you like. My preference is to toss the pot, covered, into a 250 degree oven. That way I don't have to think about stirring.

Taste, adjust and serve

Almost ready to go! After simmering, the acid will have mellowed a bit. Taste and add a little more brine if you want. Does it need salt? Add a splash more soy sauce or fish sauce, or just a pinch of salt.

I really like this soup with a couple slices of warm bread and a spoonful of chili crisp or salsa macha. (Hot sauce is awesome, but it's usually pretty acidic, and we worked really hard to get the acidity nicely balanced with our pickle brine. Chili crisp is oil-based, and so it adds depth and heat without making your soup too sour! Lao Gan Ma brand is my go-to.)

Make it yours, plus a springtime version

This, like most recipes here on Bean Tips, is more of a format than a formula. And it's all about using what you have on-hand. So skip the carrots and celery if you need! Chop up a bell pepper instead! Try fennel! Artichoke or olive brine instead? Sure! Pickled beet juice? I don't see why not!

Try it with lemon juice and fresh herbs

I've been making variants on this soup for a while now. Here's my other favorite. Instead of pickle brine, add some lemon juice and a pinch of sugar, or honey. Lots of different fresh herbs would be good, but a big handful of chopped dill, right at the end, is wonderful.

Alright! That's the soup! Hope this one becomes one of your favorites too!