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This hearty butternut squash lentil soup is a comforting and nutrient dense superfood soup, featuring lentils, kale, and leeks.
Ready for the coziest, most comforting superfood soup? This butternut squash lentil soup tastes like a bowl of sunshine. It’s chock full of beautiful, colorful healthy ingredients, and it tastes surprisingly more delicious than you’d imagine from the humble ingredients. Using leeks brings a complexity to the body of the soup. The only part about this superfood soup that requires some time is chopping the vegetables. You can use that to practice your knife skills — and we’ve listed some time savers below! Keep reading for the butternut squash lentil soup recipe.
Another great lentil soup? Curry Lentil Soup
How to make butternut squash lentil soup
This butternut squash lentil soup is filled with nutrient-rich foods like lentils, butternut squash, leeks, and Swiss chard. It’s also very, very tasty — it gets rave reviews from friends and family alike. In fact, it just might rival our current favorite, Italian White Bean Soup. It’s perfect for a cozy fall dinner, or a warm lunch for a chilly afternoon.
The only time consuming part of this soup recipe is the chopping. It requires quite a bit of vegetable chopping: garlic, carrot, leek, butternut squash, and kale. As a time saver, you could chop all the veggies in advance and refrigerate until making the soup: this could make it a 30 minute meal. Another option is to use frozen cubed butternut squash, which can shave off quite a bit of time.
Related: 12 Best Kale Recipes | 15 Best Lentil Recipes
How to cut butternut squash
The hardest part of making this butternut squash lentil soup is cutting the butternut squash! How to cut butternut squash? Here’s what Alex and I do: First, slice off top of the squash, then the entire straight neck of the squash. Peel it and peel the round base. Cut the base in half and remove the seeds from each half with a spoon. Slice the neck into strips and then cubes. Then do the same with the rounded bottom part of the squash: slice it into strips and then cubes. Once you know how to cut butternut squash, it’s a breeze to this easy butternut squash lentil soup recipe! See the video below to watch us in action.
Video: How to cut butternut squash
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How to cut leeks
Except…for how to cut leeks! Cutting leeks can also be a source of confusion. Here’s how we cut leeks: first, we chop off the dark green stems of the leeks and the bottom root, then slice them in half length-wise. Then we place each leek half cut-side down on the cutting board and chop it into thin slices, resulting in half-moon shapes. Here’s the important part: rinse the sliced leeks thoroughly in a colander to remove any dirt. Because leeks are roots, there’s typically a lot of dirt in the bulb portion! See the video below to watch us in action.
Video: How to cut leeks
Looking for more butternut squash recipes?
Butternut squash recipes are in the air! Outside of this butternut squash lentil soup recipe, here are a few of our favorite butternut squash recipes:
- Butternut Squash Pasta
- Butternut Squash Curry
- Creamy Butternut Squash Risotto
- Cozy Curried Butternut Squash Soup
- Easy Instant Pot Butternut Squash Soup
- Baked Butternut Squash Chips
- Easy Butternut Squash Soup
- Curried Acorn Squash Soup
- Vegan Butternut Squash Soup
- Roasted Butternut Squash
- Best Squash Recipes
Related: Best Vegan Dinner Recipes | Quick Coconut Lentil Curry |How to Cook Lentils
This recipe is…
This butternut squash lentil soup recipe is vegan, plant-based, vegetarian, and gluten-free.
Related: Try using our Homemade Vegetable Broth for this recipe!
Butternut Squash Lentil Soup
This hearty butternut squash lentil soup is a comforting and nutrient dense superfood soup, featuring lentils, kale, and leeks.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 4 to 6 1x
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 3 garlic cloves
- 3 carrots
- 3 large leeks or 1 large yellow onion (or a combination; 1 leek and 1 yellow onion works well)
- 1 medium butternut squash (4 to 5 cups diced; use frozen diced as a time saver)
- 1 bunch Tuscan kale or Swiss chard
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 8 cups vegetable stock (we used 6 cups broth and 2 water)
- 1 ½ cups brown or green lentils
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- Fresh ground pepper
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)
Instructions
- Mince the garlic. Peel and chop the carrots into half moons.
- Chop the leeks (watch the video!): chop off the dark green stems and the bottom roots, then slice each in half length-wise. Place each leek half cut-side down on the cutting board, then chop it into thin half-moons. Rinse thoroughly in a colander to remove any dirt.
- Chop the butternut squash (watch the video!): Slice off the neck of the squash and peel it with a vegetable peeler. Peel the base. Slice the base in half and scoop out the seeds. Slice the neck into thin rectangles, then into long slices. Turn the slices the other way and dice. Cut the base into thin slices and then dice into small squares.
- Wash and chop the kale (watch the video!). You can also wait to do this step while the soup simmers in Step 6.
- In a large pot over medium heat, heat the olive oil; add the leeks or onions and sauté until softened, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add carrots and garlic and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes until softened.
- Add the squash, vegetable broth, lentils, thyme, oregano, and kosher salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes until the lentils and butternut squash are soft (taste test a few). In the last few minutes, add the chopped chard and simmer until tender. Add additional salt and pepper to taste. If desired, stir in the lemon juice.
I have made this recipe multiple times and we love it. The only comment is, I would encourage people to add the lentils along with the garlic and carrots in order to soften the lentils, which are never soft at the end of the recipe otherwise. Thank you so much for this recipe. We love it.!