Man oh man, this certainly tasted delicious but I’d like to talk about the absolute TRAIN WRECK that was me trying to make this soup. I was feeling very confident in my culinary know-how the other evening and I had a bunch of veg and stuff that need to be eaten so I said to myself I can make soup! Gonna be easy, gonna be a good time. I may not have had such a rocky experience if I had just, oh I don’t know, looked up a reference recipe to guide me. But no, I went in completely blind and I am all the wiser for it. I want to share this experience with you all because Kale eating plants is all about the journey, including the mistakes.

Basically what happened was I started making it around 8pm, not knowing that making soup takes a few hours on the stove at least. After about 2 hours of sitting and waiting for the soup to be ready I finally had to transfer the entire thing to my InstantPot because I was too hungry to wait. But then I didn’t set the pressure cook for enough time because I’m a dingleberry. So I ended up having to put even more time on the pressure cooker. And I had made toast to eat with my soup and I had timed it perfectly with the first pressure cook but not the second so it ended up being too hard after sitting in the oven. And THEN I took pictures of the soup without putting in the pasta that I had made and I didn’t’t even notice until I was halfway through my meal. So then I put the pasta in and I was setting it up to take another picture when my attention was called elsewhere and when I came back the pasta had swelled up and was overtaking the whole bowl. I finally just had to accept that the Veggie and Lentil Soup had just gotten the better of me.

That said, the recipe below is one that I have indeed tweaked to help prevent you friends from making the same mistakes as me! Don’t be intimidated because the InstantPot makes everything easier. I just thought y’all would have a good hoot reading about the mishaps of an amateur.

• I liked putting a small pasta (I made macaroni) in the soup because it bulked it up even more. But it’s not necessary. If you do want to include it, I suggest making and storing the pasta separately so it doesn’t absorb all the extra liquid and get mushy.
• A leek isn’t totally necessary but again I had some leftover from the risotto and I needed to eat it. Make this recipe your own by adding literally any vegetable you want or have in the fridge!
• I used canned lentils when I made it, but I think it would work much better if everything cooked together so I included dry lentils in the recipe below. If you use canned lentils, just add them to the soup once it’s done cooking to heat them through.
• This one is 100% vegan heyooooooo.
• I am aware that previously I said I would never include carrots in one of my recipes ever because I think they are gross. However, I can accept that they add flavor to things and are part of that “Holy Trinity” of soups starters or whatever. Full disclosure: I kept the pieces really big so I could pick them out and give them to my dog. #noshame

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Pressure Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 yellow onion
• 1 leek
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 carrot
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 1/2 cups of dry lentils
• 4 cups of veggie broth
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2 tsp fresh thyme
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Prep all your veggies. Cut them into bite size pieces or whatever size you want to eat in your soup. Set the InstantPot to the sauté function. Sauté the onion, leek, celery, and carrot until the onions start to turn translucent.

2. Once translucent, add the garlic, thyme, and Italian seasoning. Once the garlic is fragrant, add the diced tomatoes, lentils, and veggie broth. Turn the sauté function off.
3. Turn on pressure cook to high pressure for 20 minutes. Set the valve to sealing. Once the InstantPot is done, release the valve to venting and wait for all the steam to escape. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Serve soup hot with crunchy toast, topped with parsley, parm, lemon juice, or anything you’d like!

Even though this recipe was a rollercoaster for me, it doesn’t have to be for you. The soup is so worth it in the end! And it tastes even better the next day once all the flavors get to know each other. I hope you guys give this one a try!