Red Lentil Soup with Mint and Sumac Oil
Red lentils cook down to a thick pot in twenty minutes. A spoon of mint-sumac oil at the end does the rest.
- calories
- 610
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 111
- protein
- 22 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 22 min
- total time
- 27 min
- water
- 700 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Red lentils | 3/4 cup | split red only, they break down on their own |
|---|---|---|
| Dried onion flakes | 2 tbsp | |
| Dried carrot | 2 tbsp | store-bought or home-dried |
| Tomato powder or paste | 1 tbsp | paste from a tube if you don't have powder |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | |
| Ground cumin | 1 tsp | |
| Ground coriander | 1/2 tsp | |
| Vegetable bouillon | 1 cube or 1 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | in a leakproof dropper bottle |
| Dried mint | 1 tsp | |
| Ground sumac | 1 tsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste | |
| Lemon juice powder | 1/2 tsp | optional, stands in for the wedge |
Method
- Bring 700 ml of water to a boil. Add the lentils, onion, carrot, tomato, garlic, cumin, coriander, and bouillon.
- Drop to a low simmer with the lid cracked. Stir every few minutes so the lentils don't catch on the bottom.
- After about twenty minutes the lentils will have collapsed and the pot will be thick. Add a splash of water if it goes past thick into paste.
- Pull it off the heat. Stir the dried mint and sumac into the olive oil in your mug or a spoon, then pour it over the soup.
- Salt now, not earlier. Bouillon is already salty and you can't take it back.
Red lentils are the reason this works on a stove that burns fuel by the minute. They have no skins to soften, so they fall apart in about twenty minutes and thicken the pot themselves. No blender, no straining, no second dish.
The original finishes with mint and sumac sizzled in butter. Butter is a problem in a pack, so olive oil does the job and the spices go in off the heat instead, where they won’t scorch. Sumac carries the sour that a fresh lemon would, which is why it is worth the half ounce of jar space. Salting at the end matters: bouillon is built to be salty on its own.
Packing
Everything dry goes in one bag except the mint and sumac, which get their own small bag or a folded square of foil. Oil rides in its own bottle, upright, in an outside pocket.
Variations
- Stir in a handful of instant rice or couscous at the ten minute mark for more calories. Couscous drops the gluten-free claim.
- A packet of coconut milk powder makes it richer and rounds off the sour edge.
- Home-dry the tomato paste on parchment and it packs flatter than a tube.
https://daraeats.com/velvety-lentil-soup