Hearty Vegetable Tortellini Soup with Lentils
It was a good time for more fall soup today, and we still had some fresh chicken broth to use up.
To be fair, I could happily eat soups or stews several days a week when the weather’s not too hot. My family did that reasonably often while I was growing up. Soup can be an excellent inexpensive way to stretch out the resources you have, making good use of various leftovers and odds and ends in as delicious and nutritious a way as possible.
I try to keep the soup and stewmaking down a bit these days, both in the batch size and how often I turn them out, because I really am the main soup fan in this house. But, Mr. Sweden also particularly enjoys the occasional noodle soup. So, now we’re getting two different types a few days apart.
This wouldn’t be the first time I have used some of these ICA store branded refrigerated tortellini in a vegetable-based soup. He loves the fresh filled pasta for himself, and keeps picking these up for me too. While they are actually the best-textured gluten free stuffed pasta that I’ve had so far? I do think they work better as a dumpling cooked in soup with more going on, than to just eat a plateful lightly dressed like I used to with frozen ricotta and spinach ravioli in particular. Plus, this way, everyone gets to enjoy the filled pasta together!
This particular pack of tortellini had been in the freezer for a while, and I was remembering them as cheese stuffed. My original plan was to use some leftover cooked chicken in a similar soup. But, these turned out to have a beefy filling, so the lentils seemed like a better choice to go with that.
It did turn out delicious!
Vegetable Tortellini Soup with Lentils
Materials
- 2 small onions or one larger
- 1-2 stalks celery optional but recommended
- 1-2 medium carrots
- 2 cloves garlic
- 100 g kale or collard greens (or 4 oz./¼ lb.)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 75 ml dry green or brown lentils (or ¼ cup)
- 1 liter broth of your choice (or a quart)
- 250 g packaged fresh/frozen tortellini of your choice (or 8 oz./½ lb.)
- 200 ml chunky pasta sauce or canned chopped tomatoes (half a 400g/14 oz. can of tomatoes, or just under a cup of either one)
Seasonings
- ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
- ⅓ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
- salt and pepper to taste
To Serve
- grated Parmesan or Romano type cheese
Instructions
Preparation
- Assemble your ingredients, starting with the vegetables and lentils.This is a home-frozen package of refrigerated gluten free meat filled tortellini (beef), which is sitting out to thaw some while I do the other prep.
- Cut your veggies into soup-sized pieces, however you like. We're aiming for about 30 minutes of cooking time for most of them. Adjust as needed for your size pieces, or if you want them less tender.We did not have celery today, though I would include some if we did. We're also using frozen chopped kale, with around 100g left in the bag as it turned out.
- Set the onion and celery to one side with your chopped or crushed garlic to use first, with the carrots and greens ready to go in later.
- Also set the broth and tomato components ready to use.Today, I am using part of the recent homemade chicken broth, mixed half and half with Knorr vegetable bouillon. It'll be good with whatever broth you prefer. We also had an open jar of chunky Arrabiata sauce, so I am just using that instead of opening a can of chopped tomatoes.
- Assemble your seasonings.I was using the already seasoned pasta sauce, so you might want to increase the herbs a bit if you're using canned tomatoes. Same goes for the salt, and any other seasonings that might apply.
- Rinse your lentils well in a strainer, looking through them for anything like small rocks or stray grains mixed in. (Particularly important if you need to avoid gluten!)Shake excess water off, and set aside.
Cooking
- Sauté the onions and optional celery in olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan of at least 2L capacity.. Again, we're not looking to get them particularly soft now, just cooked until they start turning translucent for the flavor. Add the chopped garlic, and continue frying for another minute or so.
- Add in the broth, bay leaf, pepper, and lentils. I would also add the red pepper flakes at this point, if I were not using the pasta sauce later on with some chile already in it.Bring to a boil.
- Simmer the lentils, covered, for 15 minutes. We're aiming for 45 minutes total with these before the tomatoes go into the soup and seriously slow further cooking.
- Add the carrot and greens, along with the rosemary and thyme.. Bring back to the boil, then simmer covered for another 30 minutes.These particular frozen greens came chopped much more finely than I prefer, or how that brand usually comes. It doesn't look nearly as good this way, but I'm sure it will taste just fine.
- After the 30 minutes are up, evaluate the lentils for doneness. These were soft all the way through, but not falling completely apart–which is what I was aiming for. Simmer for a few more minutes at a time as needed, until everything is done to your liking.
- Once the lentils are fully cooked, add the tomato component and oregano.
- Bring back to a boil, then simmer for another 5 minutes. Adjust the seasoning to your taste.This is a good point to hold the soup until you're wanting to eat very soon. Resting will only improve the flavor. I ended up letting this sit for nearly an hour before we were ready to eat.
- Bring the soup back up to a boil, and stir in the tortellini. Keep it at a high simmer or low boil for maybe 3 minutes, then test a piece for doneness. This needed about 5 minutes to my liking. The fresh pasta does cook very quickly.
- Looking good! Time to eat.
- Sprinkle on some grated hard cheese to serve, as you like. Tonight we had some refrigerated pre-grated Grana Padano.
- Enjoy!