Slow Cooker Lentil Soup with Sausage
This Slow Cooker Lentil Soup with Sausage is so easy and so good! No pre-cooking required – put everything directly into your crockpot, return 8 hours later and ladle it into bowls. A flavorful, healthy meal that couldn’t be simpler!
Did you know that near the top of the homepage of this blog, you can see which five of my recipes are currently trending? This little widget automatically updates to display the recipes that have gotten the most clicks in the past seven days.
As I’m writing this, four of those five spots are occupied by crockpot soups and slow cooker beef stroganoff (and the fifth is a stovetop shrimp wonton soup). Turns out, everybody loves slow cookin’ and everybody loves soup, and why not? It’s an awesome, low-mess, less-time way to get a meal on the table!
About this Slow Cooker Lentil Soup with Sausage:
This Slow Cooker Lentil & Sausage Soup is the kind of crock pot recipe I like best: where you just put all the ingredients in the pot (no advance cooking), set it for 8 hours, and come home and just ladle it into bowls.
I’m a big fan of lentils for how filling (and cheap!) they are (lentil pasta sauce and lentil vegetable curry are also favorites around here). I love beans for the same reason, like in my ham bean soup recipe.
I used a mix of brown and green lentils here, just because that’s what I happened to have on hand, but feel free to use all brown or all green.
I also used one of my current favorite ingredients – smoked turkey sausage. To me, it tastes almost identical to traditional smoked sausage, but has less calories and fat. Win-win!
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Garnishing and serving this Slow Cooker Lentil Soup with Sausage:
If desired, top each bowl with a dollop of Greek yogurt, some fresh cilantro, a lime wedge for squeezing, and a side of naan bread.
Or heck, just keep it super simple and ladle this soup directly out of the crockpot, insert spoon, and call it a day. Either way, you’re going to love this recipe!
Psst – I also have an Instant Pot version of this same soup —> Instant Pot Lentil Soup.
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Slow Cooker Lentil Soup with Sausage
Ingredients
- 2 stalks celery chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 medium carrots chopped
- 1 medium leek white and light green part only, thinly sliced
- 6 ounces smoked turkey sausage cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- ¾ cup brown lentils rinsed and picked through
- ½ cup green lentils rinsed and picked through
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 6 cups less-sodium chicken broth
- ¾ cup Greek yogurt
- Fresh cilantro
- 1 lime cut into eighths
- Naan bread for serving
Instructions
- In bowl of slow cooker, stir celery, garlic, carrots, leek, sausage, lentils, tomato paste, curry powder, thyme, cumin, salt and pepper until well combined. Stir in broth. Cover and cook on low 8 hours (or on high 4 hours) or until lentils are tender.
- To serve, divide soup between bowls and top with yogurt and cilantro. Serve with lime wedges and naan.
Notes
- Use your favorite sausage! Turkey smoked sausage is great as it's less fatty in your soup. Any sort of Polish sausage, kielbasa, or smoked sausage is great.
What size of crockpot do you use?
Hi Jamie! I use a 5 quart crockpot.
1464g of sodium for a bowl of soup is rather high. Any suggestions on how to reduce it? Other than maybe the sausage, I dont see an abundance of salt in the other ingredients.
Hi Lorrie,
To be honest, I was surprised by the sodium count as well. I use a third-party nutrition calculation system, and I don’t have access to see the stats for each individual ingredient. I can only assume that the majority of the sodium is coming from the chicken broth (which even less-sodium broth still has quite a bit) and the sausage. Perhaps the curry powder, if it’s a kind that contains salt. I would just watch for those things to reduce it as much as you can.
Your recipes and photos are awesome. I would love some information about these bowls!!!
Thank you so much, Carmen. The bowls are from Anthropologie several years back.
Any suggestions on a non dairy option for the yogurt?
The yogurt is totally optional, so feel free to just omit it, or use a non-dairy yogurt. Thanks for stopping by, Angela.
Your soup sounds delicious! I’d like to make it this week but I have not cooked with lentils before. Did you use dry or canned? Can you explain what you mean by “rinsed and picked through”? Thank you!
Hi Melissa – this soup uses dried lentils. Rinse them under cold water, and give them a quick glance to see if you see any small stones, debris or anything else that shouldn’t be there. It’s really rare these days, but has been known to happen with lentils in the past!
Do you think it would be okay to use raw turkey sausage? I know you used cook but putting it in a croc pot for 8 hours would it cook fully? It’s easier to find raw than cooked.
Hi Kelsey! Great question. The turkey sausage I’m referring to isn’t the kind that is made from ground turkey. It’s actually more like a smoked sausage / kielbasa product (although is usually found in the same part of the grocery store where the ground turkey sausage and hot dogs are found). Please see the following links for a couple of different options for sausage for this soup. I hope this helps!
https://www.jennieo.com/products/78-fully-cooked-hardwood-smoked-turkey-sausage
https://www.jennieo.com/products/77-fully-cooked-hardwood-smoked-turkey-kielbasa
Do you cook the sausages first?
Hi Christina – the sausage I used here is sold fully cooked, so it really just needs to be warmed through. So no, I didn’t cook them additionally first. Hope that helps!
This was a delicious hearty stew/soup! A great alternative to typical lentil soup which can be a little boring! I used mostly green lentils, with 1/4-1/2 cup split red lentils. I like the way red lentils break down and add some thickness and body to the base of a soup. I also threw in some frozen spinach about 30 minutes before serving. This could be customized with all kinds of veggies depending on what’s on hand!
Love the addition of frozen spinach. So glad you enjoyed this recipe 🙂
This sounds really good. I’ve been looking for a lentil soup recipe and this one seems like it will have the flavor I’ve been looking for.
I’m so glad to hear that, Susan. Enjoy!
This looks like one hearty and delicious soup. Perfect for Fall!
Thanks so much, Thalia!