Sausage and Lentil Soup

From: Bhujia

On Sep 20, 2009

I brought home a cup of the soup from Carrabbas to look over while eating and noticed that it had bacon in it, so I diced, cooked, drained and added a package of smoked bacon. I omitted extra salt and red pepper flakes because I used hot sausage and 1.5 cartons of chicken broth with salt and figured everyone could adjust theirs to taste. Everyone loved it! Also, I threw everything into the crockpot and let it cook on low for about 4 hours rather than cooking it on the stove top (I did brown and drain the sausage and bacon.) Will make this again and again, especially in the cold months.

From: Chef #1145189

On Jan 26, 2009

AWESOME! My husband liked it so much he's talking about bringing the recipe to work to give to the guys to take home to their wives (he works on a construction site) AND sending a copy to his mother! We love the Carabba's version, and this is very close. I used chicken sausage, because that is what I had in the freezer, but other than that, followed the recipe exactly. This one is definitely going to be a regular at our house!

From: Meyer Lemon

On Dec 6, 2006

Loved it! Our kids like lentil dishes a lot. There was one lentil soup that I made at "assemble fresh, vacuum pack, take & make-at-home" place. Many things were good from there, but that soup was fabulous. This recipe looked to be the closest to what we had. So I tried it with minor variation, which turned out just as nicely as we expected. It ends up to be a lot of soup, so I did the first 2 steps; split up the sauteed items into two; and continued with the rest with 1/2 portion of the recipe — which was plenty for a family of 4. The saved (step1&2) veggie/sausage can be used within few days later or frozen. The Italian sausage was the key for us (to enhance flavor), so I got sausage from specialty store. Hot or sweet would do that job. Since chicken broth may be high on sodium, try low sodium or home made. I added more tomatoes, with its juice, too; since lentil eventually made the soup really thick. The other soup called for bulgar wheat, with less lentil, which gave the soup a bit different texture. It's a nice healthy addition, so I added 1/3 cup bulgar wheat as well. Keep watching the soup thickness and add water or chicken broth accordingly. Thank you for the recipe.

From: cfletcher

On Nov 22, 2008

Outstanding soup! I made 1/2 recipe for my husband and I and it turned out great. Since I used the hot Italian sausage, I didn't add the pepper flakes for extra spice. Just a dash of salt and pepper were the only other spices I used. This is a meal in itself along with garlic bread! There is enough left over for 1 more bowl...only problem is who will get it ! Thanks for a super soup!