Curried Lentil Soup

I have all the good feels for lentil soups. I've never met one I didn't like. How can you not love those tiny, perfect little circles of bean bliss? They cook quickly and lend a fabulous texture to an otherwise boring soup. This one is super delicious, and takes a whopping 5 minutes to put in your slow cooker (insert praise hands emoji here!). It is fresh, light, and would be a perfect post-Thanksgiving-gluttony meal. You know what to do.

Slow Cooker Curried Lentil Soup

-slightly adapted from gimmesomeoven.com

• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 large carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 medium white or yellow onion, peeled and diced 
• 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 1/2 cups dried green or brown lentils, rinsed and picked over
• 1 T. curry powder (my curry powder was mild, feel free to use hot if you like it spicy)
• 1/8- 1/4 t. cayenne pepper (I added this for some heat. Obviously if you have hot curry powder you won't need this)
• 1 t. garam masala
• 1 t. ground cumin
• 1 t. salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups roughly-chopped baby spinach
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice, plus extra lemon slices for serving
• chopped fresh cilantro leaves, for topping
• plain Greek yogurt for serving

Oops. Forgot to add the yogurt before I snapped the pic

Add the garlic, carrots, onion, stock, lentils, curry powder, cumin, and bay leaves to your slow cooker**. Stir to combine. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or on low for 6-8 hours, until the lentils are tender. Stir in the baby spinach and lemon juice until combined and spinach is wilted. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Serve garnished with lots of fresh cilantro, lemon slices, and a dollop of plain yogurt. 

**For my Instant Pot friends, I think this could easily be done. Next time I may just plop it all in the pot and cook at high pressure for 5 min or so. Reason I suggest 5ish minutes is that I recently made a lentil soup in the Instant Pot with recommended cook time of 3 minutes and it was perfect!