Sausage Lentil Soup

I have previously posted this recipe for Sausage Lentil Soup, about 8 months ago, but we had our first day of cool weather a few days ago! When the temperature outsides drops into the low to mid-60’s as a high, my soul begs for soup. I chose Sausage Lentil Soup for our first soup of the season. It is so easy to put together, and the flavor is out of this world, I had to share it again!

The two recipes vary slightly, in that the previous recipe uses Italian Turkey Sausage instead of pork, and I added zucchini to the soup in the previous post. This time, I’m posting the original recipe without any alterations.

First, I start off with 1 pound of Italian pork sausage that is out of its casings. Sometimes I can find it in the store that never had casings to begin with, which I love because it’s a time-saver. But honestly, it only saves about 30 seconds. Now, if you’re not into pork sausage, I’ve tried Italian Turkey Sausage in this soup and it is equally as delicious. Just be sure to remove the casings from that as well.

I heat up a soup pot or a dutch oven over medium-high heat, and put my sausage in to brown. Just break up the sausage into bite-size chunks and let it brown on all sides.

Next, I simply add all of the other ingredients: 2 stalks of chopped celery, 2 chopped carrots, 1 chopped onion, 3 minced garlic cloves, a 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes (and their liquid from the can), 1.5 cups of dried lentils, dried basil, oregano, parsley and thyme, and black pepper.

Finally, I bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat to low to let the soup simmer for 1 hour with the lid on. When it’s done, I like to eat my soup with a slice of buttered bread or garlic bread. Cornbread is always a good option as well.