To get started, try a basic recipe, such as this red lentil soup, which gets its flavor from a handful of vegetables and seasonings. Check out Food & Wine's guide for other lentil soup ideas.

We met Chef Salma Habib at the Minnesota State Fair and loved her Egyptian fare. So we invited her to show us more! She’s here to show us how to make lentil soup.

Often when I make soup, I wing it using ingredients that need to be used up. I rarely follow a recipe, but this gingery coconut and red lentil soup I make roughly the same way each time.