Like Labor Day, the first day of school and the fall equinox, the start of soup season is a September moment, one for the calendar. Autumn is here when you’ve put on a sweater and hauled out a soup pot.
I’m not a soup nut the way some of my food colleagues are, but I do appreciate its unsexy charms. So please, put on that sweater and follow me deep into this reservoir of soup recipes, all of them relatively quick and simple enough for you to make for dinner tonight. There’s a stewy dish below that you can start with — red curry lentils with sweet potatoes — along with a brothier option, coconut-miso salmon curry. And if you’re under the weather? Here’s a fast chicken noodle soup, and an exceptional, totally-from-scratch chicken soup recipe that I love. (If you love it too, or really any of our work here at New York Times Cooking, please consider subscribing. It allows us to do everything we do.)
Suggestions? Requests? Email me at dearemily@nytimes.com. I read them all!
1. Red Curry Lentils With Sweet Potatoes and Spinach
This satisfying and enormously popular recipe from Lidey Heuck draws inspiration from Indian and Thai cooking. It keeps well in the fridge, so I wouldn’t hold back. Make a big vat of it to feed yourself all week.
3. Coconut-Miso Salmon Curry
“Best recipe on this site by a landslide,” in the words of one commenter. I’m not here to play favorites, but this quick dish from Kay Chun really is a standout. Swap in other seafood if salmon isn’t your thing.
4. Kale and Walnut Pasta
This pasta dinner from Naz Deravian is all about the textures: the tender sautéed kale, the firm give of the spaghetti and that nice big crunch from toasted walnuts. A generous squeeze of lemon is the finishing touch.
