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Is this not the prettiest soup that you ever did see?! This curried coconut lentil soup is so vibrant and is so creamy delicious! It is packed with flavor from the curry and spices. The coconut milk gives it a luxuriously creamy texture.
The best part?! It’s all put together in the Instant Pot!
I don’t cook with lentils EVER and I don’t know why. They’re so readily available and they’re a great source of protein.
They’re so versatile because you can basically mix anything together with the lentils and it’ll soak up all the flavor.
This soup is my new obsession and I hope it will be yours too. A lot of readers have requested Instant Pot and vegetarian recipes and I think that this combines the best of both worlds!
Instant Pot Curried Coconut Lentil Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon ginger paste
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- ¾ cup (144 g) dried red split lentils
- 13.5 ounce (383 ml) can unsweetened full fat coconut milk
- 1 ¼ cups (296 ml) water
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 14.5 ounce (411 g) can crushed tomatoes
Instructions
- Press sauté on the front of your 6-quart Instant Pot. In the insert, add the onion, garlic, ginger paste, curry powder, crushed red pepper flakes, lentils, coconut milk, water, salt, and pepper. Stir to mix then let it come up to a simmer then press cancel. Immediately add the can of crushed tomatoes LAST and on top of everything else and do not stir it in. Pressure cookers seem to not like tomatoes for some reason and you will often times get a BURN notice. If you don’t stir the tomatoes in and just let it sit on top, you should be fine.
- Close the lid of the pressure cooker and make sure that the vent is set to sealing.
- Using the manual function, use high pressure and set the cook time to 15 minutes.
- Once the soup has finished cooking, let sit for 15 minutes before you quick release the pressure. You can choose to either quick release it or let it naturally release, depending on how hungry you are or when dinner is!
- Divide evenly into bowls and garnish with parsley or cilantro on top.
Notes
Nutrition
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Just made this recipe and it was AMAZING! I didn’t get a burn notice and the lentils and tomatoes were nice and soft come time to eat. I did however have some curdled coconut milk. It was a little strange and I was able to pull most of it out, and we enjoyed the soup once I did it. Have you seen that before, any recommendations?
Hi! Sorry to hear you had curdled coconut milk. I haven’t had that happen before but since it is heated up to a high temperature, that’s probably a risk. Did you use full fat coconut milk or did you use light coconut milk? It does make a difference so I’m curious which you used. To prevent this next time, you can add it in after the soup has cooked.
One word: score!
Made a few tweaks and this was outstanding. We wanted some protein so we added three boneless, skinless chicken thighs. These are the edits I made: seasoned 3 chicken thighs with salt, pepper, Benny T’s Vesta dry very hot sauce, and madras curry. Browned chicken in medium hot skillet for 6 mins to add color and let the seasoning sink in. Then went to step 1 of recipe. Instead of 1 1/2 cup of water I used 2 1/4 cups of chicken broth, 1/4 cup water. Added crushed tomatoes at the end and nestled the chicken into pot. Closed and cooked on high pressure for 15. When it was done I quick released the pot after 5 mins instead of 15 as I didn’t want the chicken to over cook. I prefer my lentils to blend in to my soup so this was perfection.
Glad you enjoyed and thanks for writing your tweaks!
I just had a question as to how big each serving is.
A large bowl..like maybe 6-7 ounces?
So delicious!!! No burn warning. I did everything according to your recipe and added 3/4 veggie broth and it’s amazing. My son is a big fan as well :)
Yay! Wonderful to hear this.
I made this and it didn’t burn but also all liquid was gone. It was good flavor wise but not a soup. I used chicken broth and can coconut milk with diced tomatoes. I did manual 8 min and 11 npr. What did I do wrong
What size instant pot do you use?
Out first Instapot recipe, and it was a success! We followed the recipe, and it turned out perfectly delicious. We had a can of diced tomatoes, so we blended them in our Vitamix, and when we pour we them in, they sunk to the bottom, so I got worried. But not to worry, it still turned out, with no BURN warning!
Wonderful to hear!
I sauteed the onions and garlic in some olive oil first, then added all the ingredients, and mixed them. I had no problem with burning. Everyone loved it!
Great to hear!
The recipe itself is delicious, but as others are saying, this is not safe for the instant pot. I followed the directions perfectly and still wound up with a BURN warning less than 10 minutes in once the pot reached full pressure. It was definitely the lentils that were burned, not the tomato. I was able to salvage most of it and cook it on the stovetop covered at medium heat for 30 minutes. While this cooked it down to a less soupy and more stewlike texture, I have to say the end product was quite tasty. I’ll probably make this again on the stove because I like the flavor, but I’ll definitely be looking for a different instant pot lentil soup recipe.
Thanks for your feedback! I did some research on this just now and I’m going to modify the recipe a bit. I think it’s the lack of enough liquid for the lentils to sit in while it comes up to pressure that causes this. I’ve read several other blogs and the comments and I’m going to test it too! Sorry you had to bring it to the stovetop but really appreciate the feedback!
I find leaving the coconut milk out of the recipe and adding after it has been cooked prevents the “burn” warning! It does not change the end result.
This recipe made my instant pot give me the “burn” message so I opened it and all the rinsed starchy lentils were stuck to the bottom… very annoying to have to deal with this. This recipe should be modified because it is not the tomatoes that are the issue.
That’s interesting you say that because another reader just emailed me this today about this exact recipe: Oh. My. Goodness! I just made your Curried Coconut Lentil Soup in my new Instant Pot (finally broke down on Amazon Prime Day and got one). Second thing I’ve made. It’s SO GOOD! It’s like a big, healthy, warm hug in a bowl. Thanks for sharing that one. Now to learn some more IP recipes!
So, I’m not quite sure why yours did that. Sorry though.
Delicious soup but not good for the Instant Pot. My Pot came to pressure but kept steaming so I opened it up and discovered a very burned bottom. I was able to salvage the soup and finished cooking on the stove.
So sorry to hear that you had a burned bottom! I haven’t had issues with that but I know in other recipes, people have had issues with tomatoes and burnt bottoms with the instant pot. My suggestion: add the tomatoes in last and don’t stir it up. I’m glad you were able to salvage it though!!