This cauliflower, sweet potato and red lentil soup is so thick, creamy and satisfying! Jam packed with veggies plus red lentils for protein. The lentils cook super quickly and everything gets blended together to make a hearty soup! Gluten free and vegan.
I love snuggling up with a soup bowl for dinner (with hot buttered toast for dunking, of course). It’s one of life’s simple pleasures and always makes me feel so warm and content. Bonus points if I have made my own soup too; I mean, soup is so so easy, why wouldn’t you make your own! Do you love a good home mde soup too? Give this cauliflower, sweet potato and red lentil soup recipe a try. It’s bloody delicious.
During the cooler months, you can find a variety of soups stashed away in my freezer. I always make them in large batches, because they are so easy to store, a great way of using up veggies, and I can build up a bit of variety in flavours! That said, the majority of my soups do tend to have a sweet potato or a pumpkin base. I just love how thick and creamy these make a soup, and they give it such a beautiful golden glow. (If you love creamy golden soups too, check out my Coconut and Ginger Pumpkin Soup and my Spiced Sweet Potato and Capsicum Soup!)
For a little something extra, when I made this soup to photograph, I also made a big batch of slow-roasted cherry tomatoes to use as a soup topper. To make the tomatoes, slice cherry tomatoes in half and place up facing cut side up on a large tray lined with baking paper. Drizzle over a bit of extra virgin olive oil, and then roast in an oven set to 130 C for as long as is needed to make them look all wrinkly as pictured. They offer a nice little punchy flavour burst and would also be delicious in a salad or stirred through pasta!
If you’re not keen on the tomatoes, I also like topping this soup with fresh herbs (coriander and/or parsley), pumpkin seeds and/or sesame seeds. If you have time to toast the seeds they are awesome that way. As well as that essential buttered toast, those little toppings add some extra texture, so you chew and don’t slurp the soup down all at once.
To make this cauliflower, sweet potato and red lentil soup, you’ll need a large soup pot, a tray for roasting and a blender (regular or a stick/immersion blender). You could possibly just boil the cauliflower and sweet potato along with the lentils, but I think roasting the veggies gives you a better flavour. Boiled cauliflower can be a bit…meh. Roasting gives it more flavour and brings out the sweetness of the sweet potato, too. Just the way I like it!
Cauliflower, Sweet Potato and Red Lentil Soup
Ingredients
- 1 cup red lentils (measured uncooked)
- 500 grams sweet potato
- 500 grams cauliflower
- 1 brown onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 thumb size piece ginger
- 1 litre vegetable stock (to be added 500mL at a time, as instructed below)
- 1 cup water
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- extra virgin olive oil for cooking
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C and line a large baking tray with baking paper. Chop cauliflower and sweet potato into chunks. Place sweet potato on tray and drizzle with olive oil. Roast for about 15 minutes, then add the cauliflower (with a drizzle of olive oil) to the tray as well, and return to the oven for another 30 minutes, or until all of the veggies are soft and browning at the edges.
- While the vegetables are roasting continue with the rest of the soup. Peel and finely chop onion, garlic and and ginger. Heat a large soup pot on the stove and add 2 tablespoons olive oil. Fry the onion, garlic and ginger until fragrant, for about 2 minutes. Add in the lentils, 500mL of the vegetable stock and 250mL of water. Bring to the boil, and then gently simmer for approximately 15 minutes or until the lentils are soft.
- Once the roasted vegetables and the lentils are done, combine them in the soup pot, and add in the remaining spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric) and the remaining 500mL of stock.
- Use a stick/immersion blender to puree the soup together right in the pot, or transfer to a jug blender and blend (you may need to do so in batches). Return to the soup pot to warm up over the stove and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Notes
You say to add 500ml of the stock with the lentil and 250ml of water which is not listed in the I gradients. Then you say later one to add the remaining 500ml of stock but I thought that was already added earlier… confused
*ingredients
Hi Alicia, apologies for the confusion on this recipe. I forgot to list the water in the ingredients list! This is now fixed. Regarding the stock, it says “remaining 500mL” because earlier in the recipe it says to add 500mL of stock, however the ingredients list requires 1 whole litre of stock. So, you add half of the stock when cooking the lentils, then the rest later as instructed. 🙂
Making this today! Can I use regular lentils? The store I went to didnt have red.
Hi Alicia, red lentils are quick cooking and do not require soaking, unlike other types/colours of dry lentil. I am not sure that you could substitute for another type of lentil, unless you first soak the dry lentils as instructed on the relevant packet (it will vary by type/colour of lentil). Yellow split peas may be an appropriate substitute, however I have not used them in this recipe myself. Thanks! 🙂