Cleopatra’s favorite soup recipe

Egyptian Red Lentil Soup

I would love to tell you the elaborate story about our vacation in Egypt a few years ago. How we toured the pyramids, saw the Sphinx and indulged in the local cuisine. While we were there we learned a lot about Cleopatra and how she was famous for her recipes, and “medicines”.

That would be a great introduction to this recipe. The truth is we have never been to Egypt and we found a recipe for Egyptian Red Lentil Soup in Food & Wine magazine. We gave that recipe a try and thought we could make some improvements, so this is our take on Egyptian Red Lentil Soup, or as we like to call it, Cleopatra’s favorite soup recipe. Maybe someday we will get to Egypt and find out first hand if this is even authentic Egyptian cuisine. For now, we will keep making this soup and dreaming about the mysteries of Pharaohs.

This lentil soup recipe can me made complete vegetarian with vegetable broth. We usually use chicken broth since we always have some in the pantry.

Please give this recipe a try and let me know what you think. If you have any recipe requests, please leave me a comment.

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Egyptian Red Lentil Soup

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time45 mins

Total Time1 hr

Course: Soup

Keyword: Egyptian, Lentil, Soup

Servings: 10

Calories: 212kcal

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs butter or olive oil
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 2 carrots chopped
• 1/2 red pepper chopped
• 3 celery ribs chopped
• 3 – 4 garlic cloves chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 lb tomatoes seeded and diced, or canned whole tomatoes
• 2 cups red lentils 14 ounces
• 8 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• In a large pot, heat the butter or olive oil. Add the onion, carrots, red pepper, celery and garlic and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, 5 minutes.
  
• Add the spices and cook until fragrant, 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook just until softened, 2 minutes.
  
• Add the lentils and chicken or vegetable stock and season with salt and pepper. Simmer over moderately low heat until the lentils are very soft, 30 minutes.
  
• Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender. Return to the pot to keep hot. Serve hot with yogurt or sour cream, warm pitas or tortilla chips, or whatever you like.