Green Lentil & Herb Soup

Here's a great meal idea for Meatless Monday! This ingredient is a great nutritious source. Lentils are legumes and are rich in protein and so so inexpensive. You can buy them precooked (Trader Joe's) but if you get them dried, they are even less expensive and really expand when cooking. I used one bag for this recipe and I think it would feed 15 people. I decided to puree mine, but it's a great addition to a broth based soup too with pieces of veggies and herbs. After this one was finished, I put leftovers in the fridge and it really absorbed a lot of the liquid. So I used it as  a veggie spread and thought what a great alternative to avocado (so sad, it's one of my reactive foods). So I could put this in a wrap or use as a spread on chicken or fish.

INGREDIENTS:
 

• 1 bag of dried green lentils
• 2 small white onions, sliced
• 1 cup fresh parsley
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup fresh thyme
• salt/pepper
• Olive oil for cooking/coating pan
• Reduced sodium vegetable broth (MSG free - I used dried packets and just added to the water)
• Water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Rinse lentils and cover in water. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat and let simmer until softened. (I added some salt to this)
2. Peel and slice onions. Coat with olive oil spray.
3. Heat saute pan to medium heat and coat with olive oil spray.
4. Once pan is heated, add onions, salt, pepper. Let these cook slowly until they soften.
5. Add cooked onions, seasoning and herbs to pot of lentils.
6. Stir to combine and then use an immersion blender to mix into a pureed soup.
7. You can add the stems of the parsley to this since you are blending it all up!
8. Ladel into a bowl and top with feta cheese or another of your choice.
    

Like I mentioned, this will absorb liquid as you store it, so when you want to heat some up for leftovers, just add more broth to thin out. It's fall so maybe add some toasted pepitas or other nuts or seeds! Let me know how you would use this!