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Lentil and Brown Butter Curry Soup

Name: Lentil and Brown Butter Curry Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Ingredients: 2 tablespoon butter; 1 onion, diced; 3 cloves garlic, bruised; 1 teaspoon smoked paprika powder; 225 gram / 8 oz dried lentil, washed and rinsed; 6 cup vegetable stock/water; 3 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon curry powder; 1/2 cup coconut milk; 1/2 - 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste; olive oil; grated Parmesan, or nutritional yeast

Last updated: Mar 24, 2020 — Published: Mar 24, 2020 — By: Anita — 5 comments

Not your average lentil soup. With the addition of coconut milk, and especially the brown butter curry, this will certainly be your new favorite lentil soup.

Ingredients for lentil and brown butter curry soup: lentil, butter, onion, garlic, smoked paprika powder, curry powder, and coconut milk.

When I am busy and have no time to do grocery shopping, I rely on easy recipes like this lentil and brown butter curry soup for a quick, filling, and healthy meal.

Literally the only fresh ingredients to make this soup are onion and garlic. Everything else is a pantry staple that I almost always have at home. I can’t even count how many times I’ve made this lentil soup because of this.

And since this soup has a great flavor, it is always a hit at home no matter how many times I’ve served this for my family. :)

How to prepare lentil soup: (1) Sauté onion, garlic, and smoked paprika. (2) Add lentil and vegetable stock, and simmer until soft. (3) Add coconut milk and salt, then puree the soup. (4) Stir in brown butter curry.

What's in this lentil soup

For the soup itself, we will need butter, onion, garlic, smoked paprika powder, lentil, vegetable stock, coconut milk, and salt.

To make the brown butter curry, we will need butter and curry powder.

Use any curry powder you have at home. If you have several types, then you can experiment and find out which one you love best. Maybe you will even end up with more than one favorites. :)

I always use unsalted butter, though you can also use salted butter. Simply reduce the amount of salt if you do use salted butter.

Brown butter curry

Brown butter is made from cooking regular butter just long enough with low heat to toast the milk solids in the butter.

Brown butter has a very fragrant and nutty flavor that you simply don’t find in regular melted butter. Taste-wise, it’s a bit like toffee and caramel.

For the more scientific-minded cooks, browning butter has the same effect as searing a piece of steak. Both are the same process called Maillard reaction which breaks down animal proteins into hundreds of flavor compounds.

And here is how we make the brown butter curry to add to the lentil soup. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a small saucepot over low heat. Stir until it starts to foam and brown, about 5 minutes. Then stir in the curry powder and fry until fragrant, about 1 minute. Set aside.

Cooking the soup

First, melt 2 tablespoons butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Then sauté onion and garlic until onion is soft and translucent. Add smoked paprika powder and mix.

Next, add lentils and vegetable stock/water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until lentils are tender. Around 40-50 minutes.

Once lentil soup is soft, remove the pot from the heat and stir in coconut milk and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender, or with a blender/food processor in batches.

Stir in brown butter curry and add more salt as needed.

Serve the soup hot with a drizzle of olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast.