Kitchen Sink Soup

Ingredients

  • Lentils
  • Potatoes cut to bite size cubes
  • Carrots cut to approx size of the potatos
  • Bell Peppers diced (optional)
  • Onion diced
  • Garlic minced
  • 28oz can of diced tomatoes
  • 16oz can of sweet corn
  • Lemon juice
  • Vegetable oil
  • Italian sausage
  • Bacon (optional)
  • Chicken (optional)
  • Beef (optional)
  • Beef or chicken stock
  • Sage
  • Rosemary
  • Thyme
  • Oregano
  • Basil
  • Red Pepper flakes
  • Bay Leaves
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Steps

  1. In a pot put your carrots and potatoes and cover with beef/chicken stock. Add all of your seasonings. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and let cook until the potatoes and carrots are soft enough to cut with a fork.
  2. While the potatoes and carrots cook heat a skillet over medium heat. Cover the bottom in oil and put your onions in the skillet. Cook until the onions start to soften and become translucent.
  3. Add your garlic and cook for about 30 seconds longer.
  4. Add your sausage and cook until brown. If you are adding other meats add them as well at this stage and cook until they are cooked all the way through. Season with a little bit of salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
  5. Once your carrots and potatoes are soft add your lentils and bell peppers. Cook to package instructions for the lentils.
  6. Remove from heat. Add diced tomatoes, sweet corn, and your meat. Pour in a little lemon juice. Stir to make sure everything is distributed evenly and serve hot.

Notes!

I typically make the veggies and broth in an Instapot. If you are using an Instapot I recommend cooking the potatoes and carrots for 30 minutes at high pressure, and then adding the lentils and bell peppers and cooking for another 10 minutes at high pressure. If you are using ground beef I recommend cooking it with the sausage, but if you are using cubed beef, throw it in with the potatoes at the beginning and cook it in the broth so it becomes tender.

I call this Kitchen Sink soup because it really is everything but the kitchen sink. The base is lentil sausage soup, but then I just throw in everything thats in the fridge. The ingredients listed here are my standard go-tos, but this is super customizable. If there are veggies you like you can just add them in, and if there are veggies you don't just leave them out. Same with the meats. This is a great soup for getting rid of leftovers or produce thats on its last leg. For veggies if you are adding veg other than whats in my recipe keep in mind that harder veg like root vegetables will take longer to soften up so throw them in with the carrots and potatoes. Crunchy veg can be thrown in with the lentils if you want it to soften, or add it at the end to retain the crunch. Soft veg should be thrown in at the end after the soup is removed from the heat.

Finally keep in mind to adjust the amount of stock and seasoning you use to compensate for how big your batch of soup is and how much meat and veg you are adding. I also recommend having some extra stock set to the side in case too much boils off while the potatoes and carrots cook you can add more to make sure theres enough liquid to cook the lentils in and cover all the ingredients.