It’s time to ease up.
It’s time have a cup of tea. It’s time to play with the cat until he scratches you. It’s time to sit on the couch and stare at the wall a bit. It’s time to stand in the kitchen and eat Ritz crackers and chug orange juice.
It’s time to make a giant pot of soup… and sorta use a recipe… but not really use a recipe.
It’s just time to ease up just a bit….
Tomorrow we can finish shopping, plan big Christmas dinners, finish knitting mittens, and start wrapping presents. For now let’s just ease.
This Spicy Chicken Sausage and Lentil Soup is a hearty winter soup. It was made for your heart and for your soul. It is a healer of all things. But!
There’s all sorts of goodness you could make on your plan to ease up just a bit.
Take in the scenery. Take in the soup!
a. Bright orange Carrot Apple Ginger Soup. Sweet and spicy and so so healthy!
b. Kale and Sweet Potato Soup. You’re the picture of health. No biggie.
c. There’s Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup, all creamed up with blended raw cashews.
d. Ok… I’m a soup fiend. Would you believe me if I told you that this Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup is the best soup I’ve ever made? It’s major. It’s bonkers. It’s veganly beefy.
e. Roasted Garlic Soup I want to bathe in. It feels like old romance.
Spicy Chicken Sausage and Lentil Soup
makes a big pot of soup. serves 8
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound spicy chicken sausage, uncased
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 celery stalks, finely diced
2 carrots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dried ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
2 cups uncooked French lentils, rinsed
8 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan cheese, olive oil, and bread to serve
in a large saucepan over medium heat, warm olive oil. Add the uncased chicken sausage and cook, breaking up with a spatula as it cooks. Sausage should finish cooking in small chunks. Remove from the pan.
Add a touch more olive oil if necessary. Add onions, celery, and carrots. Cook until the onions are transluscent, about 5 to seven minutes. Stir occasionally. Add the garlic, cumin, and chili flakes, and cook for one minute more.
Add the sausage back to the pan. Stir to incorporate. Add the lentils and chicken stock. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the soup, uncovered, until the lentils are tender, about 45 minutes.
Serve soup with a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and good crusty bread. Soup will last, in an airtight container in the fridge, for up to 5 days. Soup also freezes well.
Julie H. of Spinach and Sprinkles
Joy, you are *so* good at what you do!!!
Priyanka
Wow….that looks delicious
charlie
whoa…lentils (not my favorite) and sausage (my favorite). it’s like dog/cat love. hang on…*passes out*
Saranac Rootbeer…Ritz (at least a sleeve)…it’s like my own 6-course tasting menu.
Gary
Think I’ll save myself a few pennies next week and make this. I’ve got homemade chicken stock in the freezer just sitting there. :)
Fred @ Savorique
I make the same amazing soup weekly, except that I never use chicken stock as it tends to offset the other flavors rather than enhance anything. I eat my soup with basmati.
thelittleloaf
Sausage with lentils is one of the best combinations on earth. And the perfect winter warmer in preparation for the onslaught of Christmas :-)
Vanessa @ Strickly Speaking
Oh Joy, I love you. And I have a new-found love for lentils.
To cut costs and go easier on all our bodies I’ve started doing at least one meatless meal a week. Lentils have been well-received {and that by 3 grown men! shocking!}.
Now if only I could find good sausage here in Kampala….
Kathryn
Yeah, I really need to take a moment and just have a big bowl of soup right now before I get too caught up in the holiday madness!
Mar García
Hi, Joy, thanks a lot for your posts, they´re just awesome!! Here in Spain Lentil soup is a traditional meal that takes very common in every home, but we do not add chicken, we add a “chorizo” (spicy sausage). Love your cinnamon rolls recipe!!
Katie
I know what you mean, I call this time of year ‘crackers’, where I come home all burnt out and can’t think about anything and just stand in the kitchen eating crackers straight from the box. If I don’t have something healthy to grab and reheat quickly, crackers is all I’ll eat. Lucky for me, I just made a huge pot of spicy lentil and kale soup to use up a truckload of kale I had sitting in my fridge. So hearty and good!
Jessica
It’s all about the Ritz Crackers and a real coke while I read Marie Claire while standing over the sink.
But I could also see it being all about this Lentil Soup. Anything that comes with buttered bread is a sure winner in my book!
Maggie @ A Bitchin' Kitchen
This sounds amazing! I live alone, and love making soups in the wintertime to have as dinner all week!
Do you use uncooked chicken sausages for this? I buy those pre-cooked Al Fresco brand chicken sausages sometimes, and am wondering how they’d work out.
sweet road
Wow you have been cooking up some soups! They all look so delicious I can’t just pick one recipe to try!
Averie @ Love Veggies and Yoga
Carrot Apple Ginger Soup. Sweet and spicy and so so healthy! <– every time I see the pic of that soup, I want it!
And the fact that you think the vegan 'shroom soup is the best ever soup, period…speaks volumes. I need to try it!
Alex
Too much chicken, not enough lentils and chilli.
But i am a chilli addicted vegetarian, so what would i know?
I am going to have to make a variation of this.
Kaci
You don’t have to use any chicken. My dad has made his family lentil soup recipe for 30 years and has never used meat. :)