A healthy, simple dish, my Curried Carrot, Lentil, and Coconut Soup will chase away those late winter blahs and flood your body with health-giving nutrients!
I thought I’d pop in with one soup recipe before winter slips away for another year! It’s hard to believe I haven’t shared any soup recipes on the blog yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to remedy that as time goes on!
On the topic of winter, do you love it or would you be a snowbird if you could? I’d say that I fall somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, I enjoy peaceful walks right after a snowfall, when it feels as if the world has ground to halt. I appreciate how the weather forces me to slow down and do less. On the other hand, I could do without five layers of clothing (a bit of an exaggeration, but I do feel like a Michelin tire woman in my jacket) and heavy boots every time I go outside. And winter running in this Ontario climate has been interesting, to say the least. At this point in the season, I’m really just ready to see something other than white (or grey, or brown, as you do in a city winter). Bring on the green foliage!
The one thing that I do love about winter, though, is the warm, cozy food that comes along with it. I’m all about soups, stews, and warm drinks during this season, and I have found that eating plenty of cooked food and warming spices has been a game-changer for my wintertime immunity.
Ayurveda, an ancient eastern healing modality, would certainly support this: according to Ayurveda, our environment affects our inner health, so when it is cold outside, we should consume food that stokes our inner fire: lots of cooked food and hot spices (curry, cayenne, ginger, garlic). In short: Like increases like, so we treat with the opposite. Cold outside, warm inside. It’s simple, and it works. Of course, there is more to Ayurveda than that, but for the purposes of this blog post, that is all the detail I will go into today.
It does make good intuitive sense to eat warm food when it is cold outside, doesn’t it? This soup is the perfect warming dish for these last days of winter. It simultaneously soothes and satisfies, all while flooding your body with immunity-boosting spices and vegetables. Red lentils add heft and protein to this velvety soup, along with a healthy dose of folate, magnesium, and iron, to name just a few of the minerals found in these mighty nutritional all-stars!
I love serving this soup with homemade chapathis, and Indian flatbread made with spelt flour, water, and salt. You can also serve it with a fresh green salad, a sandwich, or simply with some nice sourdough bread and butter.
Curried Carrot, Lentil, and Coconut Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp virgin coconut oil
- 2 cups chopped yellow onion (about 2 medium)
- 4 large cloves garlic
- 3 tbsp peeled and grated fresh ginger
- 3 stalks celery
- Pinch of fine sea salt
- 1 tbsp red curry paste
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 3 cups chopped carrots
- 1 cup red lentils
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 tbsp coconut sugar
- 400 mL full-fat coconut milk (1 can)
- 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
- Cilantro, for garnish
Instructions
- In a large soup pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, and ginger. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes.
- Add celery, salt, curry paste, turmeric, and carrots. Cook five minutes more.
- Rinse the lentils in a fine mesh sieve. Drain and add to the pot. Add the vegetable broth and coconut sugar and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium-low, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent lentils sticking, for 20 minutes, or until lentils have cooked and carrots are fork-tender.
- Stir in the coconut milk and transfer to an upright blender. Blend in two or three batches and transfer back into the pot. Bring it back to a simmer, then stir in the lime juice and serve. Garnish with cilantro if desired.
I hope you love this soup! If you make it, tag your photo #holisticallie and @holisticallie on Instagram!
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