I love making soup because it’s easy, flexible and keeps well in the fridge. I also find that a lot of soups actually taste better the day after they’re made; giving the flavours time to develop can pay off.

You can leave out the heavy cream if you want to make it vegan, I just added it in because it makes it a little bit thicker. Once the soup is all blended up though, the lentils give a really nice texture that thickens up the soup and adds some protein anyways, so it’s not necessary. Also, the ghost pepper sauce is definitely not needed—I just put that in to see how spicy it would be.

I like this soup a lot because you don’t have to add tons of salt and it’s got a lot of flavour. Next time I think I’d add a little bit more curry paste, maybe an extra 1/2 teaspoon, and I would use fresh ginger and cook it with the onion and garlic.

Ingredients
Serves 6

• 1 tsp. vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• Dash of pepper
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 cup dry red lentils, rinsed
• 1 tsp. mild Indian curry paste
• 5 cups vegetable stock (I used 5 cups water and 1 1/2 vegetable bouillon cubes)
• 2 drops ghost pepper hot sauce (optional)
• 1/2 tsp. white vinegar
• 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Method
Heat vegetable oil in a large pot on medium-low heat. Add onion and cook for 2-3 until aromas begin to rise from the pot. Add garlic, pepper and ginger, and cook for another 4 minutes. Add sweet potato, carrot, lentils, curry paste, stock and vinegar. Bring the pot to a boil, then turn down to low heat and cover; let simmer for 30 minutes. The vegetables should be easily pierce-able with a fork and the lentils should be soft. Add whipping cream and stir. Remove soup from heat.

With an immersion (hand-held) blender, blend soup until creamy and smooth; no chunks should remain. Serve hot with your favourite garnish. For any leftovers, store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.