Moroccan harira (tomato soup with chickpeas and lentils)
With its velvety, aromatically spiced tomato base and hearty lentils, every spoonful is like a hug in a bowl. Grab a spoon, cozy up on the couch, and get ready to soup it up!
Servings: 8 cups
Calories: 94kcal
Cost: $8.50
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 ripe beefsteak tomatoes
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion small dice
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 stalk celery small dice
- 1 bunch flat leaf parsley finely chopped
- 1 bunch cilantro finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
- ¾ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ⅓ cup brown lentils French lentils, or beluga lentils
- ¼ cup broken thin vermicelli
- 1 can chickpeas drained
Optional to garnish:
- Unsweetened plant-based yogurt
- Fresh parsley leaves
- Fresh cilantro leaves
Instructions
- Bring a small pot of water to a boil and add the tomatoes. Cook until the skins start to shrivel and crack in places.
- Drain the tomatoes in a colander and let them cool for ten minutes. Peel off the skins and dice the tomatoes on a cutting board.
- In a 6-quart or larger pressure cooker or stock pot, heat olive oil for 60 seconds over medium-high heat.
- Add diced onions, garlic, and celery, and sauté for four minutes until golden and fragrant.
- Next, add the diced tomatoes, parsley, cilantro, ginger, pepper, cinnamon, turmeric, and salt. Continue to sauté and stir for an additional 3 minutes until the tomatoes start to break down.
- Add 4 cups of water, bring to a boil, cover, and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes until the contents of the pot are thick and the vegetables have mostly fallen apart.
- Add the lentils, and 6 cups of water.
- Bring to a boil over a high flame, and cook covered for 25 minutes or until the lentils are tender
- If you plan to add rice, add it now, and continue cooking over high heat for 15 minutes until the rice is cooked through
- Alternatively, add broken vermicelli, and cook the soup for a few minutes until the vermicelli is tender.
- Stir in the chickpeas, and serve. Optionally garnishing the bowls with vegan yogurt, and fresh herbs.
Notes
Cut a small X in the bottom of each tomato before blanching them. The skins come off very easily that way!
You can also skip the blanching, and just substitute canned whole peeled tomatoes in place of the freshly blanched and peeled ones.
Nutrition
Calories: 94kcal | Carbohydrates: 9g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Sodium: 587mg | Potassium: 256mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 548IU | Vitamin C: 10mg | Calcium: 21mg | Iron: 1mg