Vegan Lentil Soup With Sweet Potatoes & Kale

This vegan lentil soup is a comforting bowl of goodness, perfect for the cooler seasons. With sweet potatoes and kale, it’s quite the nourishing meal and can keep you full for hours—super easy to make and only requires one pot.

Here’s the process: Prep your ingredients first. Rinsing and chopping ingredients before you get started allows you to be organized and reduces the mess factor. Sauté all of your veggies in a large Dutch oven for a little caramelization, then add your liquids and remaining ingredients. Slightly blend everything together, until the soup thickens with a few chunks remaining. Season again, let it simmer, and voila. It’s magic!

Thickening vegan soup can be done in various ways. Many recipes use non-dairy yogurt, potatoes, arrowroot starch, or other starches. For this soup, I chose to use the lentils and sweet potatoes as my thickeners, which add a nice, not-too-thick texture. You could add canned coconut milk to taste as well.

How to store extra soup? You can always refrigerate any leftovers in a tightly sealed container for up to three days. You can also freeze the soup for four to six months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight (or at room-temperature for a few hours) before reheating on the stovetop.

Enjoy with garlic bread or crackers. —Shanika Graham-White

Directions

1. Add the olive oil to a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, tomatoes, and garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, until fragrant and slightly tender.
2. Add the vegetable broth, 3 cups of water, the nutritional yeast, basil, oregano, turmeric, bay leaf, black pepper, pepper flakes, salt, lemon juice, and cumin. Stir in the lentils and sweet potatoes until well combined. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, until the lentils and vegetables are tender.
3. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Using an immersion blender, slightly blend everything until the soup begins to thicken but there are chunks of veggies still left. If you don’t have a hand blender, carefully add 1 to 2 cups of the cooked veggies, along with 1 cup of the liquid from the pot, to a high-powered blender; blend until smooth and creamy, then return this puree to the pot. (Add more water to the soup if needed to reach the desired consistency.)
4. Stir in the kale and simmer for another 10 minutes or so. Serve with additional nutritional yeast if you’d like.