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
Tomato, lentil and celery soup with thyme
A thick red lentil soup with tomato, celery and thyme.
By The foodose editorial team. Nutrition calculated from USDA FoodData Central. Checked on paper on 22 September 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 rinsed red lentils collapse in 22 to 28 minutes
- Photograph the finished bowl
- Time
- About 55 min
- estimated
- Serves
- 2
- see below
- Energy
- 505 kcal
- per serving
- Protein
- 26 g
- per serving
Ingredients for 2 servings
Check off ingredients as you go.
Contains celery. Check the labels on packaged ingredients:
- chopped tomatoes. Tinned tomatoes vary in added salt; the sodium figure uses a standard salted tin.
- vegetable stock. Vegetable stock often contains celery, and some contain milk or gluten; check the label, especially if you need it vegan.
Cooking steps
Rinse the red lentils in a sieve until the water runs clear.
Dice the onion, celery and carrot small and soften them all together in the oil over medium-low heat for 10 to 12 minutes. This slow start is where the sweetness comes from.
Add the thyme leaves and cook for a further minute.
Add the rinsed lentils, the tomatoes and the stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer, partly covered, for 22 to 28 minutes, until the lentils have collapsed.
Blend about half the pan and stir it back in, so the soup is thick but still has something in it.
The useful detail
Blend only half the pan. A lentil soup blended completely smooth loses the body that makes it filling, and on a small appetite that texture is doing real work.
Make it work for you
One serving is A deep bowl, half 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.
Chicken stock instead of vegetable
Rounder and more savoury. It stops the soup being vegan.
Per serving: about 5 kcal more, about 2 g more protein, about 1 g more fat.
Fennel instead of celery
Sweeter with an aniseed note, and it softens a little faster.
Per serving: about 15 kcal more, about 1 g more protein, about the same fat.
Dried oregano instead of thyme
More resinous. Use a quarter as much.
Per serving: about the same energy, about the same 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 the lentils are the body rather than a thickener, which is why a blended vegetable soup here still carries real protein.
| Energy | 505 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 26 g |
| Fat | 10 g |
| of which saturates | 2 g |
| Carbohydrate | 83 g |
| of which sugars | not calculated |
| Fibre | 18 g |
| Sodium | 1,530 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 2. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| onion | 120 g | FDC 170000Onions, raw | 48 kcal | 1.3 g |
| celery | 200 g | FDC 169988Celery, raw | 28 kcal | 1.4 g |
| carrot | 150 g | FDC 170393Carrots, raw | 62 kcal | 1.4 g |
| olive oil | 14 g | FDC 171413Oil, olive, salad or cooking | 121 kcal | 0.0 g |
| fresh thyme leaves | 1 g | FDC 173470Thyme, freshA teaspoon of thyme leaves weighs 0.8 g, under 1 kcal on FoodData Central 173470. That record has no sugars value, so the leaves are listed here rather than counted, which keeps the recipe's sugars calculable. | · | · |
| red lentils | 180 g | FDC 174284Lentils, pink or red, raw | 644 kcal | 43.0 g |
| chopped tomatoes | 400 g | FDC 170051Tomatoes, red, ripe, canned, packed in tomato juice | 64 kcal | 3.2 g |
| vegetable stock | 785 g | FDC 171583Soup, vegetable broth, ready to serve | 39 kcal | 1.9 g |
| Whole recipe | Divided by 2 | 1006 kcal | 52.2 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. Ingredients marked “Not calculated” are excluded and could add at most 1 kcal to the whole recipe. 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. It thickens to a paste overnight; loosen it with stock or water.
- 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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About 50 min · 345 kcal · 20 g protein per serving
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