Hiya Gorgeous!
Are you ready for Spring? I am too! Winter is a wonderful time to curl up with a warm blanket and a good book. But these cold weeks and the lack of sunshine can lead to feelings of sadness and depression. I’ve covered this topic before—I know from personal experience what a struggle Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) can be!
With lifting your spirits in mind, I have an exciting new recipe to share with you this Test Kitchen Tuesday! I believe food is our medicine—and what better way to fuel our bodies than with a soup that’s easy, convenient, and jam-packed with nutrients and minerals? Lentils and spinach are two super-star ingredients when it comes to fighting the wintertime blues—and this soup is packed with ‘em!
Do yourself a favor and check out this delicious and tasty Test Kitchen Tuesday creation:
1-Pot Lentil, Potato and Spinach Soup
This recipe is the BEST soup I’ve ever had in my life! It’s the perfect dish to make and enjoy throughout the week. And don’t be stingy—share this with your family and friends too!
Hit play to see just how easy it is to whip up this hearty, soulful soup!
1-Pot Lentil, Potato and Spinach Soup
Serves 4-6
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 medium Yukon gold or sweet potatoes, diced (approximately 2 cups)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup dried brown or green lentils, rinsed and drained
6 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
4 cups fresh spinach, tightly packed
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1. In a large Dutch oven or soup pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, carrot, salt, and pepper and cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes, or until onion is translucent and carrots are slightly softened.
2. Add Yukon gold potatoes, bay leaf, tomato paste, lentils, and vegetable stock and stir to combine. Increase heat to high to bring to a boil. Immediately reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer, partially covered, for 40-45 minutes, or until lentils and potatoes are tender and cooked through.
3. Remove from heat and remove bay leaf with a slotted spoon. Add spinach and red wine vinegar. Stir until spinach has completely wilted. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper, if needed. Serve immediately.
Notes: If you and your crew don’t gobble up the whole pot of soup right away, it will keep in the fridge for 5 days. Or, split it into convenient meal-sized portions and freeze for up to a month!
Hello Kris. I have been following you and I am amazed with aall the recipes you share. ..i am just wondering if you are not veey strict in using salt, like sogium 8n commercial bought vegetable stock and potatoes etc. Do you eat pretty much all veggies even complex carbs? And what about the store bought organic wraps with seasalt?
I just would really love to enjoy my food too like you. But I have been eating bland salads because I avoid salt and complex carbs.
Btw, ive been on green juicing, salads and oatmeal, some ezekiel bread and fruits for 1 and 1/2 years fighting my stage 4 high grade incurable “leiomyosarcoma”.
God has been healing me mind, body and spirit. And I make sure to stay strong in this battle like you???
Hi Arlynne! Thanks for your questions. I’m the nutrition director here so I’ll chime in for Kris. All of the Crazy Sexy recipes (and also Kris’ diet) include a low to moderate amount of sodium and many of them include healthy complex carbs (see her blog on the health benefits of whole grains here: https://go.kriscarr.com/blog/whole-grains-health-benefits/).
Regarding sodium, only about 50% of people with high blood pressure are salt sensitive and should keep their sodium intake on the lower side (less than 2400 mg sodium daily, or about 800 mg per meal). The biggest source of sodium is processed foods, so a typical whole foods plant-based diet–even with some salt added–still remains low in sodium. This particular soup this has 634 mg sodium per serving which is considered low. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that sodium is an essential nutrient and if you don’t get enough, it’s possible to experience some depression. Also, because there’s very little natural iodine in typical diets, you may want to consider using iodized salt when you salt your foods. Kris talks about the importance of iodine as it relates to thyroid health in her blog here: https://go.kriscarr.com/blog/thyroid-health-symptoms-hypothyroidism-hyperthyroidism/ . Not to mention the fact that a little salt can accentuate the flavors in veggies and make other healthy foods taste amazing!
Sounds like you’re on a super healthy path and are taking extra good care of yourself. Keep up the great work, and hopefully adding a little more spice and variety to your diet will help you enjoy your foods even more! xo – Jen
Thank you, Kris! The soup looks lovely. I’ll try the recipe.
Let us know how it turns out, Daniela! xo, kc
Please, please, I only want to print the recipe for the soup, instead it printed 5 pages a total waste of paper and ink. How do I print just the recipe. Thank you
Oda
Click on recipes at top of page, then soup and it’s there to print. Looks so good and easy .. making it now.
Sorry, thought that looked easy to print but it didn’t work for me..printed ingredients and only a couple of sentences.
So glad you’re going to try out the recipe, Joan! Hope you enjoy. xo, kc
Hi Oda! You can view the recipe here: https://go.kriscarr.com/recipe/1-pot-lentil-potato-spinach-soup/ and click the Print button at the bottom for a printer friendly version. The other option is to select the ingredient list and instructions, then right-click and choose Print. That will print only the section you want. Hope that helps and happy cooking! xo, kc
Excellent recipe, thank you so much for the continuous inspiration, Kris! I have made the soup today, but a bit different, because I didn’t want to leave home to get tomato paste, bay leaves and spinach. So I have used instead: curry powder, dried coriander, and fresh parsley at the end – AMAZING!
Let me also take the opportunity to congratulate you and your team for the work you put into this blog. I am reading a lot about nutrition and this blog is one of the very few that I have been loyal to over time. I appreciate the amount of research cited, comprehensive writing (+ inforgraphics!), open-mindedness and respect when it comes to other lifestyles, and the acknowledgement of imperfection (in knowledge and more widely in life). These convince me that you are doing very serious work so I can trust the information you provide. Keep up the unicorn-powered job! <3
Thank you for your comment, Chrystalla! So glad you find these posts informative. And thanks for sharing your version of the soup—it sounds delish! xo, kc
Wow, this was really delicious, even my vegan-phobic husband loved it! Thanks for sharing and inspiring!
That’s awesome, Fiona! It’s hard to resist a hearty and satisfying soup like this one, huh? 🙂 xo, kris
I’ll try to thank you
Thanks, Lucas! Enjoy it. xo, kris
What a great soup thick, satisfying n delicious my husband n I loved it. Keep sending more recipes.
Made this last week and it was taste-tee! A hit with my husband and our 8 and 10-year-old girls. It was even better the next day. I’ll be coming back to this one for sure. Thank you!
Could you please post the macros for the lentil potato spinach soup? Calories , fat , carbs and protein per serving. Thanks.
My daughter’s 3rd grade class is doing a potluck dinner this Friday to celebrate the Jewish Holiday, Sukkot. This sounds like the perfect dish to bring. I’ll let you know how it goes over.
Hey Katy! This is Jennifer from Team Crazy Sexy. We’d love to hear if the soup was a hit. Thanks so much for sharing such sweet news with us!