Pressure Cooker Lentil Soup

"This is a delicious, easy, and, most importantly, FAST way to make a hearty, nutritious, stick-to-ribs soup. As with most bean soups, a good broth is they key to flavor, so use your own homemade, or a good quality brand that is sold a carton, not canned! I like Pacific Foods mushroom broth for a good, meaty flavor. If you like spinach and appreciate an extra kick of iron, pick up a bag of prewashed baby spinach, or else buy regular spinach and clean and stem it while the soup cooks."
 
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photo by monimoni4ever photo by monimoni4ever
photo by monimoni4ever
photo by Lane J. photo by Lane J.
photo by JRH8598 photo by JRH8598
Ready In:
35mins
Ingredients:
11
Serves:
4
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ingredients

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directions

  • In your pressure cooker, sweat the onions and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are translucent.
  • Add the carrots and celery and saute for a minute or two.
  • Add the ground cumin and stir well.
  • Add the vegetable broth, lentils, and bay leaves, close the pressure cooker, and bring up to pressure.
  • Cook for 20 minutes.
  • Open the pressure cooker via the quick release method (see your cooker's owner's manual!) or let the pressure come down on its own.
  • Remove the bay leaves.
  • If desired, stir in the spinach, and stir until it wilts. (Additional heat is not necessary.).
  • Season with salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Questions & Replies

  1. i'm wondering how to do an Instant Release on a regular pressure cooker?
     
  2. Does aNYONE HERE USE A PRESSURE COOKER?
     
  3. 20 minutes seems to be a long time to cook lentils in a pressure cooker don't they come out really mushy?
     
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Reviews

  1. I just got a pressure cooker and while looking for my first recipe to try I found this one and realized I had everything to make it in the house.<br/>I made it exactly as written except I used low-sodium vegetable broth. The flavor was absolutely delicious and the lentils were perfectly cooked in the specified time. Now I'm feeling pretty confident to try more recipes!
     
  2. This was delicious! Before closing up the pot, I added some chopped fresh tomatoes, 2x the cumin, and salt. I added the spinach after I took off the lid and added some letover cooked basmati rice. Really yummy. Thank you for sharing this super easy, quick and delicious recipe.
     
  3. I'm not a great lover of lentil soup, but I wanted to make it because it's so healthy. This recipe made me LOVE lentil soup. My entire family loves it. I think it's the cumin that gives it such a unique twist.
     
  4. Best Lentil Soup recipe ever!! We make Lentil soup every year for Good Friday so rest assured, I've tried a lot of recipes. I was looking for a pressure cooker recipe and found this one. No regrets! Here's what I did, though with a few tweaks: Substituted a large almost ripe tomato for the carrots as I was saving mine to make carrot cake for Easter (and had to use what I had as we are quarantined during the Coronavirus time), and for the 8 cups of vegetable broth I used 8 cups of boiling water and added one packet of Knorr Onion Soup mix and two large Knorr vegetable bouillon cubes. I also used jarred garlic and it was great! I used a 16 oz bag of dried lentils and rinsed them, but after the 20 minutes of pressure, a few beans were still too firm, so I gave it another 5 minutes of pressure cooking. Perfect texture! I omitted the spinach as didn't have that either. The soup was quite thick with all those lentils but we're used to that and prefer it that way. Then with a sprinkle of sea salt and Malt Vinegar (the way my Greek husband has been doing it for years on Good Friday), it was true perfection. The cumin was not overpowering and imparted a savory flavor. Served with crusty bread and a salad. I't s a keeper!
     
  5. I made the recipe for the most part just the way it said although I didn't have broth and not enough bulion but I had a couple packs of onion soup mix that I used as I really wanted the soup but didn't want to go to the store, 1 pack per 2 cups of water as the package said. Then bullion for the rest, 1 tsp vegetable bouillon per cup of water. I also love broth so kept it at 8 cups and it's perfect for me. As someone else stated the carrots came out a bit mushy so I cooked for 15 minutes than let it cool down on it's own for the other 5 then cooled down using cold water. Probably would have been fine cooling down manually after the 15 min as the carrots were still a bit soft. All in all I'm very happy with this recipe will make again.
     
    • Review photo by Lane J.
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Tweaks

  1. 8 cups is way Too much water. This recipe originally called for 4 cups of water, and I used 3 to get a thicker soup. Someone changed it to 8c and it’s ridiculous for 1 c of lentils. The picture for the recipe is what mine looks like with 3 cups of stock.
     
  2. Mistake in recipe! I’ve made this recipe when it was food.com so many times- and just made from current recipe ... someone changed the liquid from 4c to 8c!! It came out as a thin lentil soups rather than the thick one in the picture and that you get with much less water. Please correct it!!
     
  3. Sausage (Italian, kielbasa, whatever you've got on hand) and potatoes are great additions - 3 yellow boiling potatoes or 1 large sweet potato. As suggested, I double up the cumin. Have had delicious results using chicken broth, or veggie broth.
     
  4. Added bacon lardons, and red and green peppers. Delicious!
     
  5. I added white miso paste - worked really well, but red miso might have been better. Please provide a PSI pressure setting as well as time and release method. There are many types of electric pressure cookers out there with their own programs and versions of hi and low pressure, as well as manual cookers. Thank you!!!
     

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

I'm a professor of physics and astronomy at a small liberal arts college. My husband is a good cook and a real dear about helping out with the cooking, but I don't surrender the kitchen too often, because I really love cooking, even after a long day—though I really appreciate recipes that are quick and easy. Aside from cooking, I also enjoy reading (mostly science fiction, though I try to keep my horizons broad) and board games, card games, and role-playing games.
 
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