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With black lentils and green spinach leaves, this deliciously fun Halloween soup looks like a slimy witches’ brew. It’s loaded with flavor and nutrition, and is perfect for a creepy Halloween dinner menu or anytime you want a healthy bowl of delicious comfort food!
For the past couple of years, I’ve been enjoying sharing a new Halloween recipe or two every year. Last year it was Halloween cookies and swampy Halloween deviled eggs. Those grossly delicious swamp-inspired eggs also gave me the idea for this year’s recipe: pond scum Halloween soup!
Two things I love: Halloween food and food in literature. Combine the two into a Halloween recipe that’s inspired by literature, and I’m in my element.
Offhand, there are several instances that I can think of where a spooky soup or brew is mentioned in literature:
- Bone Soup by Cambria Evans: This is a similar story to Stone Soup. However, instead of a stone, three witches only have a bone.
- The Witches by Roald Dahl: Remember green split pea soup in this book?! It’s actually quite delicious – without the potion, of course!
- Macbeth by William Shakespeare: As the three witches (also called the Weird Sisters or Wayward Sisters) add items to their brew in a cauldron, the famous line of this play goes: “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble”.
This dark, swampy green soup is meant to look like a witches’ brew, but is actually a healthy vegan soup with black lentils and spinach. And it’s packed with flavor! With a base of aromatic onion and garlic, we build layers of depth and finish it off with fresh herbs and a hefty squeeze of fresh lemon juice to wake everything up.
Serve this brothy lentil soup along with homemade artisan buttered bread and you have a delicious meal!
Why You’ll Want This Halloween Soup All Year
- This soup is absolutely delicious. We build layers of flavor, so this vegan lentil soup is anything but bland!
- It’s loaded with nutrition. With a variety of vegetables along with lentils, it’s a good source of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein.
- This soup is budget-friendly. With an inexpensive vegan protein source (i.e., black lentils), it’s an affordable meal that’ll help you stick to your grocery budget.
- If you’re looking for easy meals, this one is a good option. This soup is a one-pot wonder so there’s minimal cleanup, and it comes together in less than an hour.
- Use it for meal prep. This soup freezes and reheats really well (especially if you chop the spinach small), so it’s great for meal prep.
Complete the Halloween Vibe
To really make this look like the witches’ brew bubbling up in a cauldron, I like to make it in my cast-iron Dutch oven. It was my great-grandfather’s, so not only is it personally meaningful to me, but it’s much higher quality than any cast-iron pots I’ve purchased, including my Le Creuset and Staub Dutch ovens!
Ingredients
Breaking It Down
Ingredients Explained
In this section I explain the ingredients and give substitution ideas where applicable. For the full recipe (including the ingredient amounts), see the recipe card below.
- Extra-virgin olive oil – We sauté the onion and celery in olive oil. You can also use avocado oil or vegetable oil.
- Onion – Much of the flavor of this soup comes from the onion, which adds great depth of flavor.
- Celery – Celery adds a mild savory, vegetal flavor to the soup. And it’s a good option if you want to keep the color of this soup predominantly green and black for Halloween!
- Garlic – Garlic adds a ton of flavor and aroma here. It also pairs beautifully with the loads of onion we have going on, as well as the beluga lentils and spinach.
- Vegetable stock – Use a good-quality homemade or store-bought stock for the best flavor.
- Dried black lentils – Black lentils are also called beluga lentils because they resemble caviar.
- Bay leaf – A bay leaf adds nuanced flavor notes to the soup’s broth.
- Salt and black pepper – These pantry-staple seasonings make sure our soup isn’t bland.
- Baby spinach leaves – Baby spinach leaves are more tender and you don’t have to remove the stems, but you can use larger, more mature spinach leaves as well.
- Fresh parsley, chives, and thyme – These fresh herbs brighten up the soup. I also love that they float on top and really make this Halloween soup look like there’s a layer of pond scum on the surface. Note that if these herbs aren’t your favorite, you can swap them out for whatever you like. Cilantro is another good option!
- Fresh lemon juice – A little bit of acid – here, in the form of fresh lemon juice – wakes up this soup. If you don’t have fresh lemons on hand, use half 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, or white wine vinegar instead.
How to Make Halloween Soup
- Add the olive oil to a 4 or 5-quart pot over medium heat. Add the onion and celery, and cook until starting to soften but not brown, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more, stirring constantly.
- Add the vegetable stock, lentils, bay leaf, salt, and black pepper.
- Bring up to a boil, and then cover the pot, turn the heat down to simmer, and cook until the lentils are tender, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in the spinach, parsley, chives, and thyme, and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice. Serve garnished with more fresh herbs.
Storage & Freezing
Once this soup is cooled, you can store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Variations
- Mushrooms – Mushrooms are a delicious addition to this soup because they pair well with the earthy flavors of lentils and spinach! You can use any type of mushrooms you like; slice or chop them, and add them along with the onion and celery. And if you have the time and really want to bump up the spooky factor of this soup, you can carve whole button mushrooms to look like creepy faces or miniature skulls.
- Meat – If you want to add meat, ground beef is a good option; you can add it along with the onion and celery and increase the sauté time to 8 to 10 minutes to brown the meat. Chicken is another good choice; if you go with chopped rotisserie chicken, add it at the end along with the spinach.
Tips for Success
- The cooking time for lentils can vary quite a bit depending on a few different factors, such as how old the lentils are, the weather, lentil size, etc. I like to start checking to see if they’re tender around the 15-minute mark. If you overcook lentils they’ll still taste fine, but they will lose their shape, turn mushy, and thicken the soup for a thick, creamy consistency instead of a brothy texture.
- If keeping this soup vegan isn’t a concern, I recommend chicken stock instead of vegetable stock. Chicken stock adds richness and depth of flavor.
- Make sure to use fresh herbs for the best flavor, and don’t skip the fresh lemon juice. These ingredients add freshness and wake up the dish, ensuring our lentil soup isn’t bland!
- For more complex flavor, add 1 teaspoon ground cumin and/or coriander. And if you like spicy heat, add a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes on top when serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nope! Bean recipes frequently call for soaking the beans in water before cooking to help make them more tender and cook faster. However, black lentils are small and quick-cooking, typically taking about 15 to 25 minutes on the stovetop.
Rinsing lentils before cooking gets rid of any dust, dirt, or debris. (I’ve found small pieces of rock in with my lentils on numerous occasions!) It’s not absolutely crucial, but it is highly recommended. If you don’t want to rinse your lentils, and least look through them to remove any debris, such as small pieces of rocks or twigs.
You can use any type of chopped leafy greens you like for this soup! If you use something heartier or sturdier, such as kale, add it when the lentils are halfway cooked and not fully cooked.
More Halloween Recipes
- Halloween Deviled Eggs – They look like something that came straight from the swamp!
- Easy Chocolate Pumpkin Truffles – This no-bake dessert is perfect if you want to make homemade Halloween candy.
- Red Sangria Cocktail with Bloody Eyeballs – This is easy to make into a mocktail for the kiddos, and the realistic bloody eyeballs are surprisingly delicious (they’re made entirely of fruit!).
Let’s Connect
Did you make this recipe? Please rate it and leave a comment below. You can also tag @anediblemosaic on social media.
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Pond Scum Halloween Soup Recipe
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Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 1/2 cups chopped onion 1 very large onion
- 1 1/4 cups chopped celery 3 large stalks
- 5 large cloves garlic crushed
- 6 cups vegetable stock
- 1 cup dried black lentils
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 5 cups baby spinach leaves coarsely chopped
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- Add the olive oil to a 4 or 5-quart pot over medium heat. Add the onion and celery, and cook until starting to soften but not brown, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more, stirring constantly.
- Add the vegetable stock, lentils, bay leaf, salt, and black pepper. Bring up to a boil, and then cover the pot, turn the heat down to simmer, and cook until the lentils are tender, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in the spinach, parsley, chives, and thyme, and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice.
- Serve garnished with more fresh herbs.
Video
Notes
- Storage and Freezing: Once this soup is cooled, you can store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Cooking Time: The cooking time for lentils can vary quite a bit depending on a few different factors, such as how old the lentils are, the weather, lentil size, etc. I like to start checking to see if they’re tender around the 15-minute mark. If you overcook lentils they’ll still taste fine, but they will lose their shape, turn mushy, and thicken the soup for a thick, creamy consistency instead of a brothy texture.
- Spice it Up: For more complex flavor, add 1 teaspoon ground cumin and/or coriander. And if you like spicy heat, add a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes on top when serving.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is automatically calculated and should be used as an approximate.
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I’m the writer, recipe developer, photographer, and food stylist behind this blog. I love finding the human connection through something we all do every day: eat! Food is a common ground that we can all relate to, and our tables tell a story. It’s my goal to inspire you to get in the kitchen, try something new, and find a favorite you didn’t know you had.
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