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Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup)
Red lentils simmered with onion, carrot, tomato, garlic and cumin, blended velvety smooth and served with lemon and crisp toasted pita croutons.
Egyptian · easy · serves 6
prep 15 min · cook 40 min
~366 cal · 21g protein · 48g carbs · 10g fat · 9g fiber · 4g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Shorbet ads, lentil soup, is the soup Egyptians grow up on. Every home makes it through the cool months, and it is a common way to open the evening meal, often as the first thing on the table when the fast is broken in Ramadan. Red lentils have been a staple of Egyptian cooking for thousands of years, and this is their simplest and most comforting form.
The lentils are cooked with softened onion, carrot, tomato and garlic, seasoned with plenty of cumin and a little turmeric and coriander, then blended until smooth and velvety. Cooks differ over the details: some add a potato for body, some use chicken broth, some finish with a spoon of , but the soup is always bright with lemon squeezed in at the table.
It comes with crunchy pieces of baladi bread or pita, toasted or fried with a little oil and salt, dropped into the bowl just before eating, and sometimes with crisp fried onions on top.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 6
- 2 cups (400 g) red lentils, rinsed
- 2 tbsp
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 medium carrots, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 medium ripe tomato, chopped
- 2 tsp ground cumin, plus a little to serve
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
- 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 7 cups vegetable or water
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 2 lemon, juice of one, the other cut in wedges
- 2 rounds pita or baladi bread
- 2 tbsp olive oil (for the croutons)
Instructions
- 1Melt the ghee in a large pot over medium heat and cook the onion for 5 minutes until soft. Add the carrots and cook for 3 to 4 minutes more.
- 2Add the garlic, tomato, cumin, turmeric and coriander and stir for 2 minutes until fragrant. Add the lentils and the stock and bring to a boil.
- 3Cover, lower the heat and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until the lentils have collapsed and the carrots are very soft.✎ Chef’s noteRed lentils catch easily on the bottom of the pot once they break down, so stir and keep the heat low.
- 4Meanwhile heat the oven to 200C (400F). Cut the bread into small squares, toss with the olive oil and a pinch of salt and cumin, and bake for 8 to 10 minutes until crisp and golden.
- 5Blend the soup until completely smooth, loosening it with a little hot water if it is too thick. Season with the salt, pepper and the juice of one lemon.
- 6Serve hot, sprinkled with a little cumin, with the croutons dropped in at the table and lemon wedges to squeeze over.
Egyptian home tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Cairo. Koshari is not pharaonic and it is not five thousand years old. The earliest written trace is Richard Burton describing lentils, rice, ghee and onions at Suez in the 1850s; a serious account routes it from Indian khichri by way of soldiers under the British; the pasta was only added around 1953 as a way of stretching it; and tomatoes did not reach Egypt until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
🗺️
Egypt. Egyptian cooking is Nile cooking, which in practice means beans, greens and bread far more often than meat. Ful medames sits over low heat overnight and is eaten at breakfast; molokhia, the jute leaf, is chopped to a fine green slick and stirred into broth; and flatbread comes hot from communal ovens to be torn and used to pinch up everything else.
🌍
Africa. Much of what reads as timeless African cooking is younger than the Atlantic crossings. Maize, cassava, groundnut, chilli and tomato all arrived from the Americas after 1500 and pushed older crops aside; millet, sorghum, teff, yam and fonio are the ones that were already here, and the map still shows the join.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Egypt
Ta'ameya (Egyptian Falafel)Egypt’s own falafel, made from split fava beans instead of chickpeas, packed with herbs for a vivid green centre and fried to a shattering crisp.
KoshariCairo’s carb-on-carb street food: lentils, rice, and pasta under spiced tomato sauce and crispy onions.
Ful MedamesSlow-cooked fava beans mashed with cumin, lemon, and olive oil, the breakfast that has powered Egypt for millennia.
Browse all Egypt recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Oven, Blender.
Storing it: Soup keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and freezes well. Reheat gently and loosen with a little water or stock if needed.
Make it an Egypt meal
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Om AliDessert
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup)?
Red lentils simmered with onion, carrot, tomato, garlic and cumin, blended velvety smooth and served with lemon and crisp toasted pita croutons.
Where does Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup) come from?
Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup) is an Egyptian dish from Cairo, Egypt.
Can Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Shorbet Ads (Egyptian Red Lentil Soup) take to make?
About 55 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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