Slowcooker Lentil Soup

With Fall coming around you can bet we are going to be sharing lots of fun Soup Recipes!  The first recipe is one of my daughter’s favorites – Lentil Soup. We have tried several variations of Lentil Soup, and the following is our favorite!  This slow cooker lentil soup recipe is inspired by the Whole Foods Market Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup recipe – with just a couple changes that make it just perfect for our family!  The kids for some reason aren’t a huge fan of peas (they get that from their grandma), but we found that Lentils swap out nicely – also, we aren’t huge fans of celery, but other than that, the recipe is pretty similar.

This is beyond easy and only takes a few minutes to prepare – after that just put it all in the slow cooker and in a few hours you can enjoy delicious homemade soup!

Ingredients list………..

• 1 lb dry Lentils (we buy in the bulk bin, you can also purchase a 16 oz bag just about anywhere)
• two cups diced ham
• three cups sliced carrots
• saute one onion with two cloves of crushed garlic in coconut oil until soft (does not need to be sauteed, but I highly recommend it)
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley diced
• one bay leaf
• a dash of salt & pepper (your preference)
• 6 cups of chicken broth (I used homemade chicken broth so I only used about 2 cups broth and the rest was water)

Now here is where it gets super duper easy………

Layer all the ingredients in the slow cooker in the order listed. Put the slow cooker on low for 5 hours. Walk away. Return in about 5 hours to delicious soup!  Seriously, it is so easy I don’t even know how canned soup companies stay in business!

This is a really inexpensive, healthy, and yummy soup recipe that is perfect for chilly days ahead. My big kids love it so much they asked for a thermos to bring it in their school lunches!

Thank you to the good folks at Whole Foods Market La Jolla who provided us with a gift card for ingredients!