Jamie Oliver's lentil soup with crispy bacon cooks in 25 minutes and is a 'total winner'

Autumn officially underway and so is soup season for that matter.

Comfort food doesn't get much better than winter warmers, and when it comes to soups, there's so much variety. You can never go wrong with cosy and healthy classic that is lentil soup.

Jamie Oliver's version is straightforward and relies on ingredients you may already have on hand. The chef's recipe features crispy streaky bacon married with thyme, parsley and garlic.

"This incredibly easy store cupboard soup with crispy bacon is great for using up leftovers," he says. To make it extra speical, Jamie sometimes adds a few dried porcini mushrooms to the recipe.

The meal takes just over an hour from start to finish and just 25 minutes on the hob. It's perfect for a hearty mid-week lunch or a soup to tuck into after a brisk autumnal walk.

Jamie Oliver's lentil soup with crispy bacon

This recipe serves four people and takes one hour and 10 minutes.

Ingredients

Fresh ingredients

• Two red onions
• Two carrots
• Three sticks of celery
• Two cloves of garlic
• Six rashers of higher-welfare smoked streaky bacon
• A few sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley

From the store cupboard

• Olive oil
• ½ a dried chilli
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme
• 200g dried lentils (a mixture of green and red is nice)
• Optional: organic vegetable stock cube
• 410g tin of cannellini beans
• Extra virgin olive oil

Method

Peel and finely chop the onions and carrots, trim and finely chop the celery, and peel and finely slice the garlic. Finely chop the bacon.

Heat a lug of olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat, add the bacon and fry slowly until the bacon starts to release all its tasty fat and goes crispy, then crumble in the dried chilli, and add the dried thyme, onion, carrot, celery and garlic.

Cook gently with the lid on for about 15 minutes, or until all the vegetables are soft, then add the lentils and one litre water or vegetable stock.

Bring to the boil and simmer until the lentils are soft (check the packet instructions as different types of lentils vary in cooking time. If you're mixing your lentils, cook for the longest amount of time to make sure they are all cooked properly).

Drain, then tip in the cannellini beans and, if the soup's a little thick, add a splash more water. Bring back to the boil and simmer for another 10 minutes, then taste and season with sea salt and black pepper.

Meanwhile, pick and finely chop the parsley.

Ladle into bowls and finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and the chopped parsley. Serve with hunks of bread for dunking.