Red lentils are the fastest legume in the store — no soaking, twenty minutes to silky — and among the cheapest protein you can buy, full stop. Simmered with ginger, garlic, and curry spices, then finished with a can of coconut milk and a hard squeeze of lime, they make a soup that's golden, rich, gently spicy, and one dollar and six cents a serving. That's not a typo. This is the new cheapest recipe on the site, and it took the belt from some very stiff competition.
What it costs
| Ingredient | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Red lentils | 1½ cups, dry | $1.35 |
| Coconut milk (full-fat, always) | 1 can | $1.69 |
| Canned crushed tomatoes | 1 small can (14 oz) | $0.89 |
| Yellow onion | 1 | $0.60 |
| Cilantro | ½ bunch | $0.40 |
| Lime | 1 | $0.33 |
| Fresh ginger | a thumb | $0.30 |
| Garlic | 4 cloves | $0.27 |
| Curry powder, turmeric, chili flakes | pantry pinch | $0.25 |
| Oil + bouillon | $0.28 | |
| Total — 6 servings | $6.36 → $1.06 each |
How to make it
- Bloom the aromatics. Oil in the pot over medium: diced onion 5 minutes, then minced garlic and ginger 1 minute, then a tablespoon of curry powder, half a teaspoon of turmeric, and chili flakes to your courage level — stir 30 seconds until it smells like the good aisle of the international market.
- Simmer. Lentils (rinsed), tomatoes, 5 cups of water with a bouillon cube. Boil, then simmer 20–25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils have collapsed into velvet.
- Coconut. Stir in the coconut milk (save a spoonful for swirling on top if you're feeling photogenic) and simmer 5 more minutes. Blend half if you want it silkier; leave it be if you want it heartier.
- Brighten. Off heat: juice of the lime, big pinch of salt, taste, adjust. Cilantro on top. Rice on the side stretches it to eight servings for pennies more.
Thrifty upgrade: the bag of red lentils this uses half of costs about $2.70 and holds two more pots of soup. Pantry math like that is how the grocery bill loses.
Swap freely
No fresh ginger? A teaspoon of ground gets you close. A can of chickpeas makes it stew-adjacent. Spinach wilted in at the end is traditional in my kitchen because it was about to expire. And a spoonful of peanut butter sounds unhinged but rounds the whole pot into something African-peanut-soup-adjacent — trust me once.
This joins the golabki-ish skillet and the white bean skillet in the under-$1.50 club — the recipes doing the quiet heavy lifting in my grocery budget.