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Soaking lentils play a critical part in my traditional cooking repertoire. Low in phytic acid and other anti-nutrients, lentils require only a quick soak before they are ready to cook – unlike beans. If you sometimes have trouble digesting beans like I do, even when properly soaked and cooked, lentils are a wonderful alternative.
There are 3 types of lentils: green, brown, and red. I typically use green lentils as they hold their shape very well after cooking, but I have recently found the red lentil to be simply delightful in soups.
When combined in a dish with homemade stock as shown in this week’s video, lentils make an economical, nutritious alternative to meat. The gallon of lentil soup I make in this video only costs about $5 – and I used organic vegetables and organic lentils! This is about 25 cents a serving!
Even the cheapest fast food can’t beat that!
In tough economic times, incorporating lots of lentils into your meals is a smart way to keep the food budget in check without sacrificing anything in nutrition!
Incidentally, Dr. Weston A. Price considered lentils to be the most nutritious of all legumes as they are loaded with potassium,, calcium, zinc, iron, and B vitamins. I first learned this at the 2007 Wise Traditions Conference during Sally Fallon Morell’s talk on “Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner’. The soup recipe I show you how to make in this video is an adaptation of the lentil soup recipe Sally discussed during that seminar.
I hope you enjoy it as much as my family has over the past few years!
Why Bother Soaking Lentils?
As discussed in the video above, soaking lentils prior to cooking significantly enhances the nutritional value of these tasty legumes. It is a process similar to soaking nuts.
In fact, healthy traditional cultures took great care to soak seeds of all kinds before eating.
Lentils are seeds too!
Soaking virtually eliminates hard to digest lectins, which can cause discomfort and encourage weight gain in some people.
If time is a concern, you can soak large batches of lentils, rinse/low temperature dry and then freeze. This way, when you want to make a recipe using lentils, you can just grab some out of the freezer and cook immediately rather than have to wait several hours or overnight to soak some first.
If you wish to save even more time, you can skip the step requiring soaking lentils and use sprouted lentils instead. I have actually switched over to using sprouted lentils most of the time now that quality organic ones are available at the health food store.
You can use either organic sprouted green lentils or the sprouted lentils trio (black, red, and green lentils). The trio is my favorite.
Be sure to never use the water from soaked beans, lentils, or any other legume for cooking. This modern practice, known as aquafaba, is not traditional. Worse, it is risky to your digestive health.
Soaked Lentils Recipe
Simple recipe for soaking lentils and other legumes to neutralize anti-nutrients so once cooked, their full nutritional value can be enjoyed.
Ingredients
- 3 cups dried lentils green, black or red, preferably organic
- 3 Tbl liquid whey
Instructions
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Put lentils in a large pot and fill with filtered water.
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Stir in liquid whey, put lid on the pot and leave on the counter for about 7 hours but no more than 18.
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Drain soaking water and rinse drain lentils again.
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Your lentils are now ready for cooking and you may use them in whatever dish you choose or proceed to the next step to make lentil soup.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
Red lentils basically disintegrate after cooking, so only soak them for use in soup recipes.
Apple cider vinegar or lemon juice may be substituted for the liquid whey.
This recipe works for split peas too!
Recipes Using Soaked Lentils
Once you have a pot of soaked lentils ready, try using them as a base for this curried lentil soup.
Another recipe to try using soaked lentils is German lentil soup.
Reference
Hi Sarah,
I’m trying to figure out the lentil soaking – I saw your video on WAP and also a blog there that says soaking at moderate temp for 12 hrs is only going to result in a 8-20 percent reduction of phytic acid. I am wondering if there is new research that shows that soaking 12-18hrs is better than that (I’d like to follow your way, it’s easier). Also, the WAP blog says to use hotter water (108 degrees). I know you are a WAP chapter leader, so I trust your information. Thank you so much, Kelly
Why no more than 18 hours?
They get mushy and potentially moldy.
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the very informative post! You mention soaking green lentils for 7+ hours. How long would you soak red lentils?
Same time.
Hi thanks for your information about lentils. I was wondering, the split daal/dahl and split peas do they need to be soaked in an acidic/water solution prior to cooking to remove phytic acid?
I am confused! Before I knew about proper lentil prep., I just cooked them ( all sorts- green lentils, red, Indian dals). Now after soaking in an acidic medium (ACV) they don’t seem to soften or cook down. What is going in?
I just want to say that I absolutely love this blog!! I found it about six months ago and it is slowly changing my life. Thanks so much for all the wonderful videos! I am so glad to be learning these things. I also absolutely love Rockapella and it made me happy that you were wearing a Rockapella shirt (even if you don’t care for them and it’s just another shirt that you had…)!
We put a few cut up pieces of grass fed bacon into the soup of as well and it gives it a wonderful flavor.
Hi Sarah,
What about brown lentils? I see you mentioned them as a variety but nothing about preparation. Do advise consuming them?
Quick question… I have a recipe that does not soak the lentils before hand, but the simmering time of the soup is 3 hours. Would I still need to soak my lentils with a recipe like that? If I did soak before hand, should I just add the lentils to the last hour of simmering to avoid a lentil mushy mess? I’m inept most of the time with cooking and don’t want to mess up my soup.