Makes ~5 bowls
12~16oz Kielbasa sausage
1 Medium yellow onion, diced
~5 Cloves garlic, crushed
.5 lb Lentils
3 tsp Better Than Bouillon stock concentrate (Chicken preferred, but use whatever you want)
5 Cups water
14 oz Diced Tomatoes
1/2 tsp sugar
1 Tablespoon Thyme
2 tsp Hot sauce
1.5 Teaspoon Cayenne
1.5 Tablespoon Butter
1.5 Tablespoon Flour
Cut sausage into half circles, at most a finger width thick. Cook the kielbasa in medium heat in your soup pot, stirring rarely to get a good amount of color on them. Avoid burning the sausage or the fond on the pot, deglaze and scrape with a small amount of water if needed. Once the sausage is done coloring add the onions, garlic, and a splash of cooking oil, cooking for a few minutes until the onions are translucent on the edges.
After the onions are done add the butter until melted, then the flour, and stir. Cook for another minute or two to let the lazy roux come together and cook. Add the water in small portions, stirring as you go to incorporate it into the rest of the ingredients in the pot. Add the stock concentrate, diced tomatoes, sugar, thyme, cayenne, lentils, and hot sauce once that’s done. Simmer the soup until the lentils are soft, usually 30 minutes to an hour.
Serve with some crusty bread and some extra hot sauce if you’d like. I usually prefer more hot sauce, but the soup should be overall mild on the spicy scale.
Bonus: for a more time consuming version but better version of this you can:
- Cook the kielbasa in small batches in a saute pan, getting better color since you won’t crowd the pan. If you do this saute a small batch of onions after each batch to pick up the fond leftover on the bottom of the pan.
- Cook the butter-flour combo (roux) separately from the sausage and darken it more.
Both of these options do make a better soup, but are more time consuming and use more plates/pans. Up to you, how I cook it depends on how I feel that day.