Chicken and Lentil Soup with Jammy Onions + Garlic
It’s quick-ish, delicious, and enough for leftovers. Plus lentils make everything seem healthier than it is, even though this is actually pretty healthy to start with.
Adapted from BA’s recipe for Chicken and Lentil Soup with Jammy Onions. See my notes in italics peppered throughout the recipe!
What You’ll Need (in the order you’ll need them)
5 boneless skinless chicken thighs - BA recommends using skin on, bone in chicken thighs but I think the boneless, skinless one’s are a lot easier to work with. You’ll sub in chicken stock for the 6 cups of water BA calls for later on in the recipe to add more chicken-y flavor. Their recipe also only calls for 4 thighs, but the more chicken the better in my book.
Salt
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
6 garlic cloves, sliced or chopped or crushed (whatever’s easiest) - Or 7, 8, or 9 cloves. No such thing as too much garlic.
1 cup red lentils
2 tsp paprika - BA calls for 1 tsp of turmeric, but I didn’t have any. From what I understand turmeric is typically only used for coloring so I thought paprika would be a reasonable sub. Plus it adds some smoky flavor. Yum.
1 tsp cayenne pepper - Always add cayenne for background heat! Just warms things up, doesn’t necessarily make anything spicy like if if you were to use crushed red pepper (at least in this amount).
2 cups of chicken stock - Chicken stock, as promised, to add a lot more flavor. We’ll supplement with 1½ cup of water too to make this more of a soup.
Freshly ground black pepper
A bunch of parsley, chopped
Juice of ½ lemon
Plain Greek yogurt (for serving)
What You’ll Do
Season the chicken with salt and set aside.
This part is going to take a second, but it’s worth it. Warm the oil in a medium-sized pot over medium heat (even use medium-low heat! BA keeps the burner at medium high for this entire process. I did that and ended up with burned, fried onions. This method is more in line with their own recipe for caramelized onions). Add onion and cook, stirring every so often until they’re brown and jammy, 20ish minutes. Then add the garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Making sure to leave the oniony, garlicky oil in the pot, remove the onions and garlic and set aside on a plate. Forget about these for now, but you’ll use them for garnish later.
Put the pot back on medium-high heat; pour in the lentils and mix in the paprika and cayenne pepper. Add the chicken you set aside plus 2 cups of chicken stock and 1 ½ cups of water (so in total, 3½ cups of liquid vs. the 6 cups BA recommends. This makes the dish more of a thick stew, than a soup. Add more liquid if you wish). Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, but then take it down to medium-low heat. Stir your soup every so often until the chicken is cooked, 15ish minutes. Make sure not to overcook your lentils! They’ll turn to mush. Not bad, but not great either (I overcooked my lentils. They were still delicious, but they were straight up mush).
When the chicken is done, take it out and shred the meat using 2 forks. Return the chicken to the pot with the chopped parsley. Take your soup off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.
Ladle your soup into a bowl; add some yogurt and the jammy onions and garlic to taste. Now eat.