Simple, practical, and full of everyday flavour, West African Peanut Lentil Soup is a vegan, vegetarian African Inspired stew made with oil, medium onion, and juicy tomatoes in about 40 minutes. The recipe lays out the ingredients and each cooking step clearly, so you can adjust seasoning, texture, and serving size for your own kitchen.
Recipe Snapshot
- Prep time: 15 minutes
- Cook time: 25 minutes
- Total time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 3
- Category: stew
- Cuisine: African Inspired
Ingredients
- 1 tsp oil
- 1/2 medium onion
- 2 juicy tomatoes
- 4-5 garlic cloves
- 1 inch ginger
- 1 tbsp sambal oelek or asian chili sauce or other hot chile sauce to taste
- 1 tbsp tomato paste or ketchup
- 1.5 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1 to 1.5 tsp Harissa Spice Blend
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 cup nut butter like peanut butter or almond butter
- 2 tbsp peanuts
- 1/2 cup red lentils
- 2 cups veggies (chopped small or thin slices - zucchini, sweet potato or potato, carrots, eggplant, broccoflower etc)
- 2.5 cups vegetable stock or water
- 3/4 tsp to 1 salt
- 1 tsp or more lime or lemon juice
- 1/2 cup packed baby spinach or other baby greens.
Method
- Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and cook until translucent. 5 minutes
- Meanwhile, blend the tomatoes, garlic, ginger, chili sauce, tomato paste, spices until pureed. Add to the saucepan. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes.
- Add peanut butter, half of the nuts, lentils, veggies, stock, salt and lemon juice. Mix, cover and cook.
- Stir at 15 minutes.Taste and adjust salt, heat and check if the veggies are al-dente. Add in the baby spinach. Cook for another 5 minutes or until the veggies and lentils are cooked through. Add more water if needed.
- Garnish with rest of the peanuts, cilantro, more lemon juice. Serve with flatbread, crackers or as is.
Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note
Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.
