Chicken and leek barley soup
A warm chicken soup with soft leeks, carrots and pearl barley.
About 55 min · 405 kcal · 36 g protein per serving
Red lentil and vegetable soup with rotisserie chicken
A thick red lentil and vegetable soup with cumin and lemon, with a shop-bought rotisserie chicken stirred through at the end. It cooks in 8 minutes under pressure and fills six containers.
By The foodose editorial team. Nutrition calculated from USDA FoodData Central. Checked on paper on 16 October 2026; not yet cooked in a test kitchen or photographed, so the times and yield are estimates. How we develop our recipes
What still needs a real kitchen
- Confirm 250 g of red lentils collapse in 8 minutes at high pressure with a 10 minute release
- Confirm the pressure cooker comes to pressure without a burn warning
- Photograph the finished bowl
- Time
- About 1 hr
- estimated
- Serves
- 6
- see below
- Energy
- 370 kcal
- per serving
- Protein
- 40 g
- per serving
Ingredients for 6 servings
Check off ingredients as you go.
Contains celery. Check the labels on packaged ingredients:
- chicken stock. Stock often contains celery, and sometimes gluten or soya; check the label.
- chopped tomatoes. Tinned tomatoes vary in added salt; the sodium figure uses a standard salted tin.
Cooking steps
Set an electric pressure cooker to sauté, or use a large saucepan over medium heat. Warm the oil and soften the diced onion, carrots and celery for 6 to 8 minutes, then stir in the crushed garlic, cumin, paprika and tomato purée for 1 minute.
Rinse the red lentils in a sieve until the water runs clear. Add them with the stock and tinned tomatoes, and scrape the base clean so nothing is stuck to it.
Pressure cooker: seal and cook at high pressure for 8 minutes, then release naturally for 10 minutes. On the hob: cover and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until the lentils have collapsed.
Shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces and stir it in with the spinach. Simmer for 5 minutes, until the spinach has wilted and the soup is steaming hot and 74°C throughout.
Cooked when: 74°C / 165°F, steaming hot throughout. A food thermometer is the reliable way to tell.
Stir in the lemon juice and chopped parsley and season to taste. To prep ahead, divide it between containers, leave them uncovered until the steam stops, no more than an hour, then cover and refrigerate or freeze. It thickens as it cools; loosen it with water when you reheat.
The useful detail
The chicken is already cooked, so it goes in at the end only to heat through. Put under pressure with the lentils it would boil into strings; five minutes at a simmer leaves it in recognisable pieces.
Make it work for you
One serving is A deep bowl, a sixth of the pot. You can switch to a smaller portion in the ingredients above; it is three quarters of this, and it contains correspondingly less energy and protein. It is an option, not a goal.
Leftover roast turkey instead of chicken
Firmer and a little drier; shred it finely.
Per serving: about 15 kcal less, about 1 g less protein, about 1 g less fat.
Kale instead of spinach
Holds its shape after freezing better than spinach. Give it 8 minutes.
Per serving: about 5 kcal more, about the same protein, about the same fat.
Vegetable stock instead of chicken stock
Lighter and sweeter; the cumin comes through more.
Per serving: about 5 kcal less, about 1 g less protein, about the same fat.
Estimated nutrition
Per standard serving, calculated from the ingredients above. Nutrition changes with substitutions, brands and how much oil stays in the pan.
A soup where shop-bought chicken does the protein and red lentils the thickening and the fibre, at over 35 g of protein a bowl.
| Energy | 370 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 40 g |
| Fat | 7 g |
| of which saturates | 1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 40 g |
| of which sugars | not calculated |
| Fibre | 9 g |
| Sodium | 1,190 mg |
Show calculation notes
Each ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its USDA FoodData Central values per 100 g. The whole recipe is added up and divided by 6. Raw weights are used for meat, fish and vegetables; beans and lentils are drained weights. All of the oil is counted as eaten. Added salt is not included; sodium from stock, bread, cheese and tinned food is.
| Ingredient | Weight used | Source | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| olive oil | 9 g | FDC 171413Oil, olive, salad or cooking | 80 kcal | 0.0 g |
| onion | 150 g | FDC 170000Onions, raw | 60 kcal | 1.7 g |
| carrot | 200 g | FDC 170393Carrots, raw | 82 kcal | 1.9 g |
| celery | 150 g | FDC 169988Celery, raw | 21 kcal | 1.0 g |
| garlic | 10 g | FDC 169230Garlic, raw | 15 kcal | 0.6 g |
| ground cumin | 4 g | FDC 170923Spices, cumin seedFoodData Central records cumin seed; ground cumin is the same seed, milled. | 16 kcal | 0.7 g |
| paprika | 2.5 g | FDC 171329Spices, paprika | 6 kcal | 0.3 g |
| tomato purée | 30 g | FDC 170459Tomato products, canned, paste, without salt added (Includes foods for USDA's Food Distribution Program) | 25 kcal | 1.3 g |
| red lentils | 250 g | FDC 174284Lentils, pink or red, raw | 895 kcal | 59.8 g |
| chicken stock | 1580 g | FDC 174536Soup, chicken broth, ready-to-serve | 95 kcal | 10.1 g |
| chopped tomatoes | 400 g | FDC 170051Tomatoes, red, ripe, canned, packed in tomato juice | 64 kcal | 3.2 g |
| cooked chicken | 500 g | FDC 171477Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted | 825 kcal | 155.1 g |
| spinach | 150 g | FDC 168462Spinach, raw | 35 kcal | 4.3 g |
| lemon juice | 46 g | FDC 167747Lemon juice, raw | 10 kcal | 0.2 g |
| parsley | 15 g | FDC 170416Parsley, fresh | 5 kcal | 0.4 g |
| Whole recipe | Divided by 6 | 2234 kcal | 240.6 g |
Per serving the energy is rounded to the nearest 5 kcal, grams to the nearest whole gram and sodium to the nearest 10 mg. of which sugars could not be calculated, because one ingredient’s record does not cover it; the row above says which. Calculation method 1.0, September 2026. How the calculation works.
Storage and reheating
- In the fridge
- Cool it quickly, cover and refrigerate within 2 hours. The FDA chart gives soups and stews 3 to 4 days. Make it within a day of buying the rotisserie chicken, because the chicken's own 3 to 4 days in the fridge began when it was cooked.
- In the freezer
- The same chart gives soups and stews 2 to 3 months in the freezer for best quality.
- Reheating
- Reheat until it reaches 74°C / 165°F, steaming hot throughout, stirring so it heats evenly.
Checked against US Food and Drug Administration, Refrigerator and Freezer Storage Chart, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Leftovers and Food Safety, FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures and FoodSafety.gov, Cold Food Storage Chart. UK guidance from the Food Standards Agency is shorter, at two days for most leftovers.
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