French-Style Lentil Soup with Goat Cheese

french lentil soup with goat cheese

At first glance, this seems like an easy soup, and it is, but once you serve it up with a nice dollop of rich goat cheese, the experience is stepped up a few notches. The cheese fills out the lentils and basic seasonings and adds a delightful velvety texture and earthiness to the bowl. This is one soup that I won't soon forget. When I just want a fairly straightforward dinner, lentils often appear. It's an ideal mid-week meal with much flair despite the somewhat humble base.


French-Style Lentil Soup with Goat CheeseFrench-Style Lentil Soup with Goat Cheese
Recipe by
Published on March 24, 2014

Simple and delightful French lentil and tomato soup seasoned with herbs and topped with soft tangy goat cheese

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Ingredients:
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 large shallot, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
  • 2 jalapeños, seeded and finely chopped
  • 1 medium tomato, finely chopped
  • 1 cup French (Puy) lentils, rinsed
  • 3 1/2 to 4 cups water
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Parmesan rind (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
  • fresh ground black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
  • 2 oz (50 g) soft goat cheese, cut into small rounds or crumbled
Instructions:
  • Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. When hot, add the shallot and stir and fry for a few minutes. Add the garlic and jalapeños and cook for another minute or so. Add the tomato to the pot and cook, stirring often, until the tomato is softened, roughly 5 to 7 minutes. Add the lentils and water to the pot, and add the dried herbs, bay leaf and Parmesan rind if using. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.

  • Add the salt and pepper to the pot, cover again, and simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the lentils are tender.

  • Remove the bay leaf and Parmesan rind and partly purée the soup using a hand blender. Adjust the seasonings and stir in the parsley. Serve hot with goat cheese on top.

Makes 4 servings

lentil soup with goat cheese

This is my contribution to My Legume Love Affair this month, a popular event celebrating all things legumes started by lovely Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook, now administered by me and kindly hosted this month by Cinzia.

Other lentil soups you many enjoy from Lisa's Vegetarian Kitchen:
Lentil Soup with Prunes and Apricots
Madras-Style Red Lentil Soup
Mushroom Lentil and Barley Soup
Turkish-Style Lentil Soup

On the top of the reading stack: Rawsome Vegan Baking: An Un-cookbook for Raw, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Beautiful and Sinfully Sweet Cookies, Cakes, Bars & Cupcakes

Audio Accompaniment: Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue - 62 Eulengasse

4 comments:

Francesca said...

Looks very tasty. Good idea to add a parmesan rind too.

Unknown said...

Full and bold, hearty and soothing. Lovely x

Joanne said...

I love lentil soup to begin with, but I'll also never turn down goat cheese! Love that you paired the two.

Cindystar said...

Soups are my favorite dish for dinner, always, and this one sounds lovely!
Thanks for participating to MLLA, round-up is now on-line: http://cindystarblog.blogspot.it/2014/04/my-legume-love-affair-69-round-up.html