If I had to pick a favorite way to prepare potatoes, it would have to be oven roasting them. I love how they get perfectly crisp on the outside, but still soft on the inside when baked at high heat in the oven. I love seasoning them up real well too; potatoes can be like a blank canvas with endless possibilities with help from your spice cabinet.

This potato side dish is one of my favorite recipes to make – and one of my family’s favorite to eat, it’s one of my main go-to recipes. I can’t tell you how many times I have made them for my family. (Another family favorite are these Cheddar-Dill Roasted Red Potatoes – you’ll have to give them a try too).

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I don’t know about you, but I love having a nice hearty soup waiting for me in the fridge, especially on weeknights. I find myself making large pots of soups on Sundays which in turn carry me through the week with leftovers for lunches and an easy dinner.  I love soups just like this Italian Tomato and Lentil Soup with Spinach, full of wholesome protein and vegetables – basically everything you need for a good quick meal in a bowl.

This vegetarian Lentil Soup recipe is especially great for those of you who are trying to incorporate more meatless meals into your daily diet. It’s very filling and satisfying and you can even give it a little more protein and texture by adding broken pieces whole wheat spaghetti or pasta to it (whole wheat pastas are a great way to bump up protein). I love to serve it with grated parmesan cheese (freshly grated if you have it or use my favorite shredded Parmigiano Reggiano from Costco).

Are lentils healthy?

Lentils are not only a staple in an Italian kitchen, but also a vegetarian one. They are a complex carbohydrate and are high protein as well as fiber. They are also naturally gluten-free. It’s no secret they are an absolute powerhouse when it comes to nutrition. If you are looking to boost your protein intake, lentils make a great choice!

More healthy lentil recipes to try:

Mediterranean Lentil Salad

Slow Cooker Lentil and Quinoa Chili

Lentil Salad with Carrots and Cilantro

So delicious.

This Italian Lentil Soup recipe makes a lot of soup – about 15 cups of soup and about 8-10 servings, based on serving size. I like to freeze my leftover soup in 4 cup glass Pyrex containers like these (affiliate link). To defrost, set in refrigerator overnight and warm slowly in a pot over medium heat or in individual bowls in microwave. Add additional liquid if needed.

Ingredients for Italian Tomato and Lentil Soup

How To Make Italian Tomato and Lentil Soup

1. In a large pot, heat olive oil and add diced carrots, celery, onion, pepper and minced garlic. Season with 2 pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper. Saute vegetables in oil for about 7-10 minutes until soft and fragrant.
2. Add lentils, diced tomatoes, vegetable or chicken stock and water to vegetable mixture. Add 2 more pinches of salt.
3. Bring soup to a slow boil over medium high heat for a few minutes, then back down to a simmer over low heat. Simmer, with lid half on, for about 35-40 minutes stirring occasionally, until soup starts to thicken.
4. Taste for salt and pepper as its cooking and add more water if it gets too thick. The lentils will absorb most of the liquid in the soup while cooking but you’ll still want it to have liquid once done cooking.
5. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, add fresh spinach leaves to soup and gently stir to combine.
6. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and lots of it!

Healthy Soup Recipes

Soup is one of my go to meals when I’m trying to trim some pounds or just generally feel healthier. Some soups I tend to make often are  Slow Cooker Italian Sausage and Kale Soup with Sweet Potatoes, Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup, Italian Vegetable Beef Soup and Healthy Chicken Tortilla Soup.

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Italian Tomato and Lentil Soup with Spinach

• Author: Aggie Goodman
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 40 minites
• Total Time: 0 hours
• Yield: 8-10 servings
• Category: Soup
• Method: Stove
• Cuisine: Vegetarian

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Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 carrots, diced
• 2–3 celery stalks, diced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3–4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1lb dried lentils
• 2 15 oz cans diced Italian tomatoes, with liquid
• 4 cups vegetable (or chicken) stock
• 5 cups water
• 2 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
• 4 pinches kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, divided
• 10 oz bag fresh spinach
• fresh grated Parmesan, for serving

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Instructions

1. In a large pot, heat olive oil and add diced carrots, celery, onion, pepper and minced garlic. Season with 2 pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper. Saute vegetables in oil for about 7-10 minutes until soft and fragrant.
2. Add lentils, diced tomatoes, vegetable or chicken stock and water to vegetable mixture. Add 2 more pinches of salt.
3. Bring soup to a slow boil over medium high heat for a few minutes, then back down to a simmer over low heat. Simmer, with lid half on, for about 35-40 minutes stirring occasionally, until soup starts to thicken.
4. Taste for salt and pepper as its cooking and add more water if it gets too thick. The lentils will absorb most of the liquid in the soup while cooking but you’ll still want it to have liquid once done cooking.
5. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, add fresh spinach leaves to soup and gently stir to combine.
6. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and lots of it!

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Notes

This recipe makes about 15 cups of soup and about 8-10 servings, based on serving size. I like to freeze my leftover soup in 4 cup glass Pyrex containers like these (affiliate link). To defrost, set in refrigerator overnight and warm slowly in a pot over medium heat or in individual bowls in microwave. Add additional liquid if needed.

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I’m not sure about where you live, but this week has been all about back-to-school in our household. This is a big year for my family, my youngest is starting kindergarten, my daughter in the middle is entering 7th grade and my oldest son is a freshman! I have no idea how we got here, but we are here now. It’s exciting, but also a bit of an adjustment having 3 kids in 3 different schools.

With back-to-school comes the need to plan for dinner. Summer break is so laid back for us that I basically wing it every week for the most part. I don’t know if I would necessarily recommend that but that’s typically how summer rolls for me. Right now though I’m in more of a meal planning mode, looking for simple dinners that everyone will eat (per the usual!).

Although it’s back-to-school, let’s be real. It’s still very much summer. It’s also still my favorite produce season.

#FRESHSUMMER 2019 PROJECT:

My dear friend Lora and I have teamed up this summer to share our love of summer produce with you – we came up with a theme for each month of our #FreshSummer recipes. August’s produce pick is tomatoes! I am sharing today’s super simple Chopped Tomato and Spinach Salad. This salad would pair up nicely with grilled chicken or seafood. Lora is sharing a recipe for her Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce, it is a beautiful dish and is making my mouth water.

In case you missed it, for the month of June we chose to share something we both made with cucumbers. Be sure to check out my Cucumber Avocado Salad  and Lora’s Sweet Summer Corn and Cucumber Salad. For July, we chose watermelon. Lora shared her recipe for Asian Watermelon Salad and I shared my daughter’s new favorite salad this Watermelon Feta Salad with Basil.

If you make a tomato recipe this month, be sure to tag us on Instagram with #FreshSummer. Follow us @aggieskitchen and @savoringitaly to see our stories and what we are dishing up!

If you make this tomato salad recipe or any of my summer side dish recipes please be sure to tag me on Instagram @aggieskitchen #aggieskitchen and #freshsummer!

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I don’t know about you, but I tend to consider watermelon a complete food group in the summer. It’s my absolute favorite and for good reason too. There is nothing like snacking on cold, refreshing watermelon on a hot summer day, period.

I remember the summers I was pregnant with both of my boys and how much watermelon I ate, it could possibly have been record breaking.

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You know I’ve been to Costco when you start to see recipes with pesto and goat cheese popping up frequently on the blog. I can’t help it. There are a few staples from Costco that I can’t be without and their pesto and goat cheese are two of them.

I have to admit, since trying the pesto from Costco I really haven’t made any at home – it’s that good (for store bought!) and you just can’t beat the convenience or price.

These Roasted Red Peppers with Pesto and Goat Cheese were inspired by my neighbor who made for us once and brought some over for me to try. He actually cooked his on the grill and wow, they were amazing. I could not wait to make them for myself. I wanted to try them on the grill, but honestly this past week here in Florida has been so brutally hot and muggy that the thought of standing over a grill “testing” a recipe just didn’t appeal to me. Roasting them up in my oven worked just as well, and I got to enjoy the a/c while doing it.

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We are officially in my favorite food season. All the fresh vegetables! I have to say, in Florida we are in this season most of the year, but when the weather is as hot as it is right now all I crave is cool, refreshing salads like this Cucumber Avocado Salad.

I have made this simple salad several times over the last few weeks and each time I make it my daughter and husband dish out the compliments. They are currently the only salad eaters in the family (in addition to me) although my oldest son does like his veggies, just served in a more deconstructed version and not in salad form. I’m good with it.

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This recipe and post were created in partnership with Shuman Farms’ Real Sweet Vidalia Onions.

This Three Bean and Vidalia Onion Salad has to be one of my favorite salads to make when we are barbecuing over the summer.  It’s a classic salad that you probably have seen more than once on a salad bar – but homemade is so much better! Wow, can you taste the freshness. I love to add sweet Vidalia onions for extra flavor, especially when they are in season mid-April to early August.

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I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time containing myself from buying too much every time I’m at my farmer’s market or favorite local produce shop.

How could you resist not going home with one of everything here??

Greens of every kind (I came home with swiss chard, fresh spinach and dandelion greens on this trip), local tomatoes (ours typically come from Ruskin, FL and you can literally smell the freshness as you walk up to the boxes of tomatoes), and a variety of beautiful eggplants, peppers and squashes you don’t typically see on your regular trip to the grocery store. Produce heaven!! I love it. Absolutely love it.

I pretty much always come home with a big bag of tomatoes. That’s a given.

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Click here to Pin this easy Roasted Asparagus recipe!

You know it’s spring when you see bunches of asparagus popping up everywhere at the grocery store. After a long season of winter squashes and sweet potatoes (with all due respect), it’s one of my favorite sights to see in the produce section. I always associate asparagus as an Easter side dish, and rightfully so since growing up that was the one vegetable I always made sure was being served for Easter lunch. I don’t really remember it being an everyday veggie for our family, but instead one I looked forward to for our holiday meal.

Nowadays asparagus is everywhere. I like to make it like this, simply roasted in the oven with a little olive oil, coarse salt and fresh ground pepper. It’s also delicious sprinkled with a breadcrumb and Parmesan mixture right at the end of it’s cook time. (more…)

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This post is sponsored in partnership with Produce For Kids.

If there is one thing that can make or break a busy week in our family, it’s meal prep and planning. As our kids have gotten older, they are involved in more and more activities and sports after school which keeps us moving before, during and after what used to be our dinner hour. It’s a short season of life, and what I’ve learned is how important it is for me to meal prep and plan to help things run a little more smoothly during the week (weekends too!), helping us to eat more meals at home.

Mission For Nutrition

I’ve partnered with my friends at Produce For Kids during the month of March in celebration of National Nutrition Month and their Mission for Nutrition program. Produce For Kids has recently launched the Mission for Nutrition program that will raise awareness on the importance of meal planning and prep to achieve regular healthy family eating.

Produce For Kids is providing a free e-book for you to download that includes a weekday meal plan and ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On the Mission for Nutrition website, you will also find several articles for meal planning tips as well as links to meal planning podcasts. These are all great resources for anyone in need of meal planning ideas!

Partners of Mission for Nutrition are donating 80,000 meals to families in need through Feeding America®.

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