Easy Instant Pot Red Lentil Soup

A delicious and creamy Instant Pot red lentil soup that is easy to make and loaded with wonderful flavors. With simple seasonings and just a touch of fresh ginger, this hearty and vibrant soup is  perfect for any time of the year. This is one of my favorite Instant Pot soup recipes and I’m excited to share it with everyone.

What Are Red Lentils?

Red Lentils don’t get enough credit in the legume world. They have a wonderful, delicate, slightly sweet flavor and provide a wonderful texture when cooked into a soup. They readily take on the flavors that are added to it, while providing a heartiness all their own. Red lentil soup shares some of the texture and consistency of split pea soup, but with it’s own terrific flavors.

Why You’ll Love This Soup

This red lentil soup is an excellent choice for a hearty, filling soup without all the junk of many commercial soups. We don’t need to add any cream at all. The soup will be silky smooth if you decide to purée it all the way. Red lentils are also loaded with fiber and an excellent source of protein.

You get to enjoy a bow of thick, hearty, delicious soup and feel satisfied to even use it as a meal. My only word of warning is that, well, you might want to go back for a 2nd helping… and maybe a 3rd!

Ingredients

This recipe starts with onion, celery and carrots, when diced and sautéed in a little butter. This is called a mirepoix. It’s the base for many soup recipes. For seasonings we’ll choose some pantry staples such as cumin, turmeric, salt and pepper. Of course, the star of the show will be our split red lentils. The lentils will have their great flavor accentuated by a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and some fresh ginger. I honestly think I could put ginger in everything. It adds such a wonderful vibrance to the flavors. Finally our liquid base will be a good, full-flavored chicken broth. Have you ever tried chicken bone broth? The flavors are deep, rich and make the perfect foundation for this soup.

Preparation

One of the things I love about this soup is that it’s super easy to make. The most prep you need is dicing the carrots, celery and onions. Then, all that’s necessary is opening the can of fire roasted tomatoes, measuring out the seasonings. We’ll call it 10 minutes for prep.

Sauté, Pressure Cook and Quick Release

I absolutely love the Instant Pot pressure cooker for making soup recipes. We start by putting the Instant Pot in sauté mode and adding the butter to the inner pot. Once it’s hot, add those veggies and stir them around with a wooden spoon. They’ll only need about 5 minutes and the onions will become translucent.

Once the veggies are sauteed, you’ll press cancel to stop the sauté mode and add all the remaining ingredients. Give everything a good stir, close the lid, and pressure cook on high pressure for 10 minutes. The Instant Pot will take about 8-10 minutes or so to come to pressure, then the pressure cooking cycle will begin. Once the pressure cooking cycle is complete, you can open the valve to quick release the pressure. It may take a minute or two for all the pressure to release. Once the pin drops, you can safely remove the lid.

Blend to Desired Consistency

There are some red lentil soups which are blended to a smooth consistency and some of which, well are not blended. Some, in fact, will use a combination of blending ½ of the soup to a smooth consistency and adding it to the unblended portion. There’s no right or wrong way when it comes to blending the soup. Personally, I like it puréed most of the way through with just a little bit of chunkiness.

The best way to blend the soup is with an immersion blender. You can place it right into the bot of hot soup and start blending away. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you’ll want to let the soup cool before adding it to a regular blender. Letting it cool is important because hot soup can create a massive amount of steam and blow the top right off of a regular blender.

Serving Suggestions

Some fresh chopped parsley is very popular to add to red lentil soup. Some flat-leaf Italian parsley will add a real fresh vibrance to the hot soup. You know what else goes excellent with red lentil soup? How about some feta cheese! Add some crumbles for some amazing silkiness and flavor. And naturally, you can’t go wrong with croutons.

Storage and Reheating

I love to freeze this soup to be enjoyed whenever the taste for some strikes. The soup freezes perfectly in air tight freezer containers. Let it cool first before adding to the containers. It can be stored in the freezer for up to 4 months. You can also make the soup as part of you meal planning and store in air tight containers in the fridge for up to 5 days.

The soup reheats very well in a microwave. If heating from frozen, use 50% power for about 4-5 minutes, then full power until soup is heated through.

Vegan Option

This soup is only 2 simple changes away from being a vegan recipe. Swap out the butter for extra virgin olive oil and the chicken broth for vegetable broth.

No Instant Pot? Make on Stovetop

If you do not own an Instant Pot, no problem. You can still make this soup the traditional stovetop way. Simply use a medium Dutch oven or large sauce pan and saute the vegetables over medium heat, then add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

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