My Goals

  • Quicker cooking

  • Made from pantry staples

  • Hearty meatless meal

  • Spice, not heat

If you only know lentil soup as a plain and rather homogeneous dish, prepare to be wowed by the Moroccan version known as harira. Not only is this soup full of warm spices and fresh herbs, but it's usually bulked up with chickpeas or fava beans, pasta or rice, tomatoes, hearty greens, and sometimes even lamb, beef, or chicken. The hearty base is usually brightened with a good bit of lemon juice and maybe a spoonful of the spicy North African chili paste, harissa. No wonder it's often the first dish Muslims eat when they break their daily fast during Ramadan.

Like countless other regional dishes, harira's exact ingredients vary from region to region and even from family to family. I wanted my version to be doable on a weeknight and ideally call mainly for staples I already had on hand. I also decided to omit any meat—with all the other robust flavors and textures in the mix, I wasn't sure what more it could offer.

Our soup calls for more than 5 teaspoons of dried spices—so make sure yours are fresh. How to tell? Give them a sniff. If they’ve lost their pungent aroma, it’s time to replace them. In general, ground spices retain their flavor and aroma for about a year when stored in a cool, dark place.

Happily, dried lentils take only about 20 minutes to cook. In place of the fava beans, I opted for chickpeas—canned was a must. Harira recipes can call for a dozen or more spices, but I pared down the list to five that would contribute different flavor notes: cumin and cinnamon for warmth; smoked paprika for depth; coriander for nutty, floral notes; and a tiny bit of crushed red pepper for a hint of heat. Instead of the dried ginger I saw in some recipes, I opted for the brighter zing of fresh ginger. I decided to limit the fresh herbs to cilantro and parsley, and to use an abundance of them, a total of more than 1 cup. I began by sautéing onion, celery, garlic, and ginger in oil and then added tomato paste, my dried spices, and the fresh herbs. Dried lentils, canned chickpeas, and water went in next, followed by crushed tomatoes and a handful of orzo, a common choice. When the pasta was halfway cooked, I added some chopped Swiss chard before finishing the soup with lemon juice. The result? My soup tasted more like Italian minestrone than Moroccan harira.

Harira can vary from region to region, so we started by sampling a range of recipes to home in on the essential flavors of the dish.

In my next batch, I eliminated the tomato paste and increased the smoked paprika and coriander, two of the most distinctive spices in the mix. For more depth, I also replaced half the water with chicken broth (any more and the soup tasted too chicken-y).

My soup was just about there, but it lacked the freshness of some versions I'd tried. The solution: I reserved ¼ cup each of the parsley and cilantro to add off the heat before serving.

My tasters certainly agreed: This wonderfully complex-tasting, spice-filled soup, made almost entirely from pantry ingredients, brings humble lentils to a whole other level.

Keys to Success

  • Quicker cooking

    Most recipes for harira call for dried chickpeas, but we use canned to cut about 2 hours from the cooking time.

  • Made from pantry staples

    Many recipes call for 10 or more spices. We pared down the list to capture the essence of harira with fewer ingredients. In addition, calling for larger amounts of two fresh herbs rather than small amounts of up to five makes for a more efficient use of fresh ingredients.

  • Hearty meatless meal

    The combination of lentils, chickpeas, and pasta makes this a filling main-course soup. The robust spices, herbs, and lemon juice deliver big flavor despite the lack of meat in the dish.

  • Spice, not heat

    Two additions of fresh herbs plus lots of lemon juice make this soup hearty but not heavy.