Name: Instant Pot Lentil Soup
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil; 1 yellow onion, diced; 3 carrots, diced; 2 stalks celery, diced; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1½ cups dried brown lentils, rinsed; 1 14 oz can diced tomatoes; 5 cups vegetable broth; 1 tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp dried thyme; 1 bay leaf; 1 tbsp lemon juice; Salt to taste

Lentils ask for almost nothing

Dried beans want a soak and a plan. Lentils want neither. Rinse them, put them in the pot with broth and vegetables, and they cook through in 12 minutes under pressure. This is the soup I make when the fridge looks empty but the cupboard is doing fine.

The base is plain on purpose. Onion, carrots, celery, garlic. The cumin and thyme do quiet work in the background, and the tomatoes keep the broth from tasting flat. Nothing here costs much, and the pot does nearly all of it.

The lemon goes in at the end

When the cook time ends, let the pot sit for 10 minutes while the pressure drops on its own. Cooks call that a natural release. The lentils keep cooking gently in the hot broth while it happens, and they come out tender instead of blown apart.

Vent whatever steam is left, pull out the bay leaf, and stir in the lemon juice. Add the lemon at the end, always. A long cook would dull it, but stirred in now it makes the whole bowl taste brighter.

Instant Pot Lentil Soup

Lentils ask for almost nothing

The lemon goes in at the end