Lentil and Garden Vegetable Soup

This beautiful soup requires a bit of time and investment as you need to make in two stages but trust me – the result is really worth it. You will have the heathiest, vegan, gluten free soup which taste like a walk in a summer vegetable garden (I can but dream my garden is that big!)

Start by chopping courgette, red pepper and carrot quite finely and popping into a baking tray with a little olive oil and roasting on 200® for just over an hour. For this soup I would say 1 courgette, 1 red pepper and 2 medium carrots should be the right amount but to save energy whilst I have the oven on I will often cook more vegetables at once and save and store for future meals.

Once the vegetables are all ready you are set to start the soup. Lentils are one of the worlds real super foods, extremely high in dietary fibre, rich in protein and full of minerals and B vitamins which are essential to maintaining a healthy digestive system and are also widely considered to contribute to a real reduction in the risk of heart disease. All in all lentils are ace.

At this point cooking the soup becomes really easy, add about 150g red lentils to a large pan and I mean large as they will expand, all the cooked vegetables, 4 chopped vine tomatoes, 2 vegetable stock cubes and approximately 6 cups of boiling water. Really simple. Cook on a medium heat with the lid on for approximately 30 minutes and stir occasionally. Red lentils do have difficulty retaining their shape as they cook but please don’t worry; nothing is going wrong. After 30 minutes you will have a delicious, hearty lentil and garden vegetable soup which will make your day and provide the nutrition needed to make a healthy, happy coeliac vegan.