This Pressure Cooker Chorizo and Red Lentil Soup is quite possibly one of the nicest, easiest soups you'll ever pressure cook! The red lentil version of Spanish Lentejas, nothing like it and yet lovely!
Whenever I remind you guys of my pressure cooked Lentejas recipe (a delicious Spanish lentil soup), I am always asked: can I make this with red lentils?
And the answer has always been:
- red lentils need different cooking times
- they behave differently
- they taste different
And lentejas is a traditional, authentic Spanish soup that uses green lentils or lentejas pardinas but definitely NEVER red lentils.
So I decided it was time to create a Pressure Cooker Chorizo and Red Lentil Soup.
Now, as I use red lentils in this soup, the taste is not the same as that of the Lentejas recipe, that’s for sure.
It’s a very different soup in general but how about you pressure cook both and let me know what you think?
You can also cook the Lentejas recipe in the Thermomix.
Instructions
Slice the chorizo lengthways in 4 or more and then dice small. Substitute with 1 tablespoon of paprika if you don't want to use meat
Pressure cook
Stir well and see the soup blend itself as the lentils disintegrate
How to make it vegetarian
Want your soup to be meat-free / vegetarian / vegan?
Replace the chorizo with 1 tablespoon of paprika (smoked paprika would be best).
Storage
Cool down and store in the fridge for 3 days.
It freezes well and you can reheat from frozen in the pressure cooker.
Top tip
Too thick for your taste? It's actually better to make a soup too thick than too thin as you can easily add stock to thin it (also takes less space in the fridge!).
📖 Recipe
Pressure Cooker Chorizo and Red Lentil Soup
Equipment
- 1 Pressure Cooker like and electric Instant Pot, Ninja or stove-top
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 85 g chorizo sliced 2-3 times lengthways and then sliced into small pieces (about half a centimetre thick)
- 1 brown onion chopped small
- 3 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 stalk celery chopped small
- 2 carrots small
- 1 tomato ripe, diced small, you could use a 2-3 tablespoons of tinned chopped tomatoes
- 1.2 litres stock cold (it can be vegetable, chicken or ham stock from making gammon), or cold water + 4 tablespoons of my vegetable stock paste
- 300 g dried red split lentils rinsed well
Instructions
Want to skip Sauté? Add all ingredients, stir and go straight to step 8
- Set the cooker to Sauté high and add 1 teaspoon olive oil.
- Once it’s heating up, add the chorizo and let it sizzle for a few minutes so that it can release its juices.
- Turn the sauté temperature down to low.
- Add the chopped vegetables (onion, garlic, celery, carrot, tomato) and stir to coat well in the chorizo juices.
- Sauté on low for 7-10 minutes, preferably with a lid that fits loosely over the cooker (it can be the lid of one of your hob pans).
- Deglaze well, this means scraping the bottom of the pot with a bit of liquid (it can be some of the stock) and a wooden spoon; to remove any caramelised burnt-on bits (which will add flavour to the soup). Deglazing helps your pressure cooker reach pressure.
- Stir in the cold stock and the lentils.
- Make sure the sealing ring is properly in place. Steam release set to Sealing.
- Pressure cook, high pressure, for 2 minutes.
- At the end of pressure cooking, leave it to do a full natural pressure release, ie let the float valve pop back down of its own accord if you want to make your life easier. It will take 20-25 minutes.
- You can also vent the rest of the steam trapped inside after about 15 minutes.
- Or leave it on warm as long as you need to.
- When you open the lid, give it a good stir and see how it turns into a lovely blended soup with no effort
Nutrition
Other recipes with chorizo
A lot of my recipes use chorizo, no surprises there!
- Pressure Cooker Chorizo Risotto
- Pressure Cooker Chicken and Chorizo Orzo Pasta
- Air Fryer Chicken and Chorizo
- Pressure Cooker Chicken and Chorizo
- Pressure Cooker Chorizo Frittata
Michael Massie says
Quick, easy, foolproof, healthy, delicious.