Bright, lemony, and big on flavor, this red lentil soup comes together with super basic ingredients and cooks in under 30 minutes (with very little active time). Known as shorbat adas in Arabic, it’s the kind of recipe you can take in a few different directions. Traditionally, it’s served silky smooth, but you can totally leave it textured. You can blend your own spices or spice it simply with store-bought curry powder. Any way you slice it, the result is always far more delicious than the effort you put into making it.
If you’re ready to hit the ground running, jump to the recipe, or read on for some helpful tips for success.
Tips for for making the best red lentil soup
1) Taste your stock before salting.
Stocks vary, but any will work here. Some stocks are intensely salty, others totally sodium-free. Start with less salt, taste, and adjust as you go. Better than bullion or even stock cubes will all work great here, as long as you season it to taste. At the end of the day, what really matters in shorbat adas is that bright, lemony finish.
2) The spices are flexible—use curry powder or blend your own.
A jar of supermarket curry powder is more than enough for this recipe. But if you feel like it, you could blend your own curry powder. Or you could just use the spices in the notes at the bottom of this red lentil soup recipe to make a quick version of curry powder.
3) One non-negotiable: use fresh lemon juice, not bottled.
This is the one non-negotiable. Freshly squeezed lemon juice is what gives shorbat adas its signature lift. And that’s true for just about any Middle Eastern lentil soup. It’s totally fine to use store-bought stock and a very average curry powder, but make sure you use fresh lemons.
4) Make it ahead or meal prep it.
Red lentil soup holds up really well in the fridge for at least 3 to 5 days (depending on how salty and lemony you make it). If it thickens too much, just add a splash of water or stock when reheating. It also freezes well. Just make sure you batch it in single or double servings to make for easy reheating.
more fun ways to use red lentils
Got red lentils left over after making this red lentil soup? Here are some other ideas for using them up:
- Mai from Almond and fig uses red lentils to make a really, really creamy hummus-ish dip.
- Alemtshaye Yigezu’s misr wot (Ethiopian red lentil stew) is another stew that uses red lentils, but in a way that is completely distinct from shorbat adas.
- Izzah from Tea for Turmeric has a famous masoor dal recipe that you’ve got to try.
ideas for using other varieties of lentils
If you’re looking for more ideas for cooking with other varieties of lentils, my two favorites are my mom’s lentils and rice for an easy weeknight meal or mujadara for something a bit fancier.
PrintLemony Red Lentil Soup
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 2 large carrots, sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed through a press or finely minced
- 3 Tbsp [20 g] yellow curry powder*
- 1 1/2 cups [260 g] red lentils, sorted and rinsed
- 2 quarts [1.9 liters] stock or broth**
- Salt to taste
- 1/4 cup [60 g] lemon juice (from about 1 to 2 lemons)
- Optional: parsley or cilantro for garnish (fresh or dried), extra lemon wedges, and rice or bread on the side
Instructions
- Heat a stockpot over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add about 2 Tbsp olive oil, onion, and carrot, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they have softened, but not caramelized (about 8 to 10 minutes).
- Push the onions and carrots to the side of the pot and add to the center about 1 Tbsp olive oil as well as the garlic and curry powder. Stir the center for about 1 minute over medium heat, and then stir everything together.
- Add the lentils and stock to the pot and bring everything to a boil over high heat. Once it comes to a boil, taste the stock and add some salt if necessary.*** Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 15 minutes, until the lentils are still whole, but very soft and slightly falling apart. Optionally purée with an immersion blender (or in a regular blender using this technique) until silky smooth.
- Stir in the lemon juice right before serving. Optionally, garnish with parsley or cilantro, and serve with lemon wedges and rice or bread on the side.
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Notes
* Instead, feel free to use 2 tsp ground coriander, 1 Tbsp turmeric, 2 tsp ground cumin, and 1 1/2 tsp ground fenugreek.
** Use either chicken stock or vegetable stock.
*** If your stock has a lot of salt already, you may not need to add much (or any at all). If it is low sodium, you may need to add quite a bit. It all depends, so keep tasting while you season.
2025 updates (recipe originally published 14 Feb 2018):
- This red lentil soup recipe used to call for individual spices with the option to substitute a pre-made spice blend. Since publishing this recipe, I realized that home cooks are more likely to have the spice blend than each individual spice. So I flipped things so that the spice blend is in the body of the recipe and the individual spices are given as an option for substitution in the notes.
- I used to say “3 Tbsp to 1/4 cup lemon juice” but I’ve since made 1/4 cup the default. 1/4 cup is really the bare minimum amount (with more added at the table). Shorbat adas is supposed to be tangy and lemony.
- I also changed it to slicing the ingredients instead of finely chopping them. If you blend it, it doesn’t matter, but if you don’t blend it, the chunkier veggies are more aesthetically pleasing than finely diced ones. (I prefer blending it)
- Finally, I tested the recipe with metric weight measurements and added metric system measurements as an option.
- Oh and I rewrote the info before the recipe to be more relevant, updated the photos because the old ones were uglyyy (sorry to 2018 me) and added a video.
Otherwise, the recipe is the same as it ever was! These are mostly small changes for convenience and better options.
This has become my “go to, soup recipe”. It’s so tasty and easy to make. It feeds a crowd for pennies.
I’m so glad you guys have been enjoying it! 😀
An excellent variation of the red lentil soup theme. I bumped into your blog after attending a zoom seminar with Simon Goldstein and reading the papers on his website which mentioned your blog. So it is the start of a week of crunching your recipes. Two dishes down, six days to go.
Oh that’s wonderful! Hope you keep enjoying the recipes (and all the philosophy talks happening online these days!).
I love red lentils. I like them as a soup like the one you posted and as a stew with rice. Thanks for sharing!
You’re so welcome! Hope you enjoy! Feel free to check out my other lentil recipes if you’re looking for more ideas—I’m kind of obsessed with them too 😉 https://www.cardamomandtea.com/search?q=lentils
Yum! One of my favorites. I’m going to try this recipe. Thank you Kathryn!
Yay that’s so awesome Jackie!! xo
This is quite similar to Indian dal (lentil) recipes! It’s amazing how this world is connected by food!
Yes you’re so right!! I love finding these connections too 🙂
We live in a community with a several Middle Easterns grocery stores, they sell a variety of lentils and I always wonder how to cook with them. I saw your picture on IG and love the look of the soup. Thank you for sharing!
Oh my gosh lucky you! That’s so awesome! I hope you enjoy the recipe, and feel free to check out my other lentil recipes if you’re looking for even more! 🙂 https://www.cardamomandtea.com/search?q=lentils