Italian Farro and Lentil Soup | Zuppa di Farro e Lenticchie
Farro and lentils are the two oldest things still cooked in Umbria, and putting them in the same pot is not a modern idea. Both were grown in the same valleys before Rome existed, both dry hard and keep for a year, and both need the same patient hour of simmering. What they give in return is a soup with two completely different textures in it: the lentil dissolving slightly at the edges and thickening the broth, the farro staying separate and chewy right to the last spoon.
The version here is the one cooked in the Valnerina, the narrow river valley below Norcia. Tomato, but not much of it. A soffritto taken slowly. A Parmigiano rind dropped in for depth. Rosemary and bay, nothing else in the way of herbs. The lentils salted late so their skins stay intact, and the farro added at a point calculated so that both grains finish at once.
There is one decision that changes everything, and it is which farro you buy. Perlato, semiperlato and decorticato behave so differently in a pot of soup that the same recipe produces three different dishes. This one is written for semiperlato, the middle option, and the notes say what to change for the others.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings. Prep: 20 minutes. Cook: 1 hour 10 minutes. Rest: 15 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 45 minutes. Difficulty: easy. Course: primo piatto, or a single dish. Region: Umbria, the Valnerina and the plain of Castelluccio.
The Story
Farro is the grain Rome was built on. The Latin far gave its name to farina and to the farreum, the spelt cake at the centre of the oldest Roman marriage rite, and legionaries drew a ration of it long before wheat bread became ordinary. It survived where modern wheat did worst, in the thin cold soils of the Apennines, and Monteleone di Spoleto in southern Umbria still grows the strain that carries a DOP of its own.
The lentils come from higher up, from the Piano Grande of Castelluccio di Norcia, a closed upland basin at about 4,600 feet (1,400 m) where the growing season is short and violent. Those lentils are unusually small, thin skinned and never need soaking, and they are the reason Umbrian lentil cooking differs from lentil cooking anywhere else in Italy. In late June the plain flowers and turns scarlet and blue, which is now a tourist event and was for centuries how a farmer knew the crop had taken.
The soup that puts the two together belonged to the Benedictine kitchens and to the farms around them, where a grain and a pulse in one pot supplied a full protein without meat and fitted the monastic calendar of fasting days. It is still a winter dish in Norcia and Cascia, cooked in the same order: soffritto, tomato, lentils, farro, oil at the end.
Ingredients
For the soffritto
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Yellow onion, finely chopped, 1 medium
Carrot, finely chopped, 1 medium
Celery stalk, finely chopped, 1
Garlic cloves, crushed, 2
Fresh rosemary, 1 sprig
Bay leaf, 1
For the soup
Lenticchie di Castelluccio or other small brown lentils, 1 cup (200 g)
Farro semiperlato, 3/4 cup (150 g)
Peeled plum tomatoes, crushed by hand, 3/4 cup (180 g)
Tomato paste, 1 tsp (6 g)
Vegetable broth or water, 7 cups (1.7 L), kept hot
Parmigiano Reggiano rind, 1 piece about 3 in (8 cm)
Dried peperoncino, crumbled, 1/4 tsp (0.5 g), optional
Fine sea salt, 1 1/2 tsp (9 g), added late
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For finishing
Extra virgin olive oil, 4 tsp (20 ml), raw over the bowls
Grated Parmigiano Reggiano, 4 tbsp (25 g)
Country bread, grilled, 4 slices
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 1 tbsp (4 g), optional
Preparation
Sort and rinse the lentils
Tip the lentils onto a tray and go through them with your fingers, looking for small stones and shrivelled seeds. Highland lentils are cleaned by air rather than by water, and a pebble the size of a lentil turns up more often than you would think. Rinse them in a sieve and leave them there. Castelluccio and other small brown lentils need no soaking, and soaking makes them break up in the pot.
Rinse the farro and choose the right type
Rinse the farro in cold water until it runs clear and drain it. Semiperlato has had part of the bran scraped off, cooks in about 30 minutes and keeps a firm bite, which is what this recipe is timed for. Perlato is fully pearled, cooks in about 20 minutes and softens quickly, so add it 10 minutes later than written. Decorticato keeps its whole bran, needs 8 hours of soaking and 50 minutes of cooking, so start it with the lentils.
Take the soffritto slowly
Warm the 3 tbsp (45 ml) of oil in a heavy pot over medium low heat and add the onion, carrot, celery, crushed garlic, rosemary and bay. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until everything is soft and sweet with no colour on it at all. This is the base of the whole soup and the stage people rush. Browned soffritto tastes roasted rather than sweet, and that flavour dominates lentils.
Add the tomato and cook it out
Stir in the tomato paste and let it fry for a minute against the bottom of the pot until it darkens slightly, then add the crushed peeled tomatoes and the peperoncino. Cook for 5 minutes, until the raw acidity has gone and the tomato pulls away from the sides. Keep the quantity where it is. This is a farro and lentil soup with tomato in it, not a tomato soup, and more turns the whole pot red and flattens the earthy flavour you are building.
Simmer the lentils
Add the drained lentils and the Parmigiano rind, stir them through the base, then pour in 5 cups (1.2 L) of the hot broth. Bring it to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Do not salt yet: salt added early toughens the skins and they stay firm while the insides go to powder. Skim any grey foam that rises in the first few minutes.
Add the farro and manage the liquid
Stir in the rinsed farro and another 2 cups (475 ml) of hot broth. Always add broth hot: cold liquid drops the pot out of a simmer and stops both grains cooking evenly. Cook for a further 25 to 30 minutes, stirring from the bottom because farro sinks and catches. Add the salt after the first 10 minutes. The soup is ready when the farro is tender with a distinct bite and the lentils are soft but still whole.
Rest, correct and finish
Take out the rind, the rosemary stalk and the bay leaf, and let the pot stand off the heat for 15 minutes. Farro keeps absorbing as it sits and the soup tightens noticeably, so judge the consistency only after the rest and loosen it with hot broth if needed. Correct the salt, add plenty of black pepper, and stir in a spoonful of raw olive oil off the heat.
Plating
Use deep warmed bowls rather than flat plates. This soup is dense and it cools fast in a wide shallow dish, and the pleasure of it is partly the heat. Stir the pot from the bottom before every ladle, because the farro settles within a minute of standing and the first bowl will otherwise get the grain and the last one the broth.
Ladle about 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) per person, then finish each bowl in the same order: a teaspoon of raw olive oil poured in a spiral, a tablespoon of grated Parmigiano, a heavy grind of black pepper. The cheese goes on at the table and not in the pot, where it would string and settle on the bottom. Parsley is optional and a little goes a long way here.
Serve the grilled bread on the side rather than under the soup. There is already a grain in the bowl and bread beneath it makes the dish heavy. A plain slice, grilled dry with nothing rubbed on it, is the right foil for a soup this savoury.
Professional Technique
The whole technique of this soup is staggered timing. Lentils and farro take different lengths of time, and a cook who puts them in together gets either raw grain or lentil mush. Small highland lentils are done in 25 to 30 minutes; farro semiperlato needs 30. Starting the lentils 15 minutes ahead means both arrive at the same moment, and that head start also lets them release the starch that gives the broth its body before the grain competes for liquid.
Late salting is the second technique and it applies to the lentils specifically. Sodium ions strengthen the pectin in a lentil skin, so a lentil salted from the beginning holds a tough jacket around a collapsing interior. Salting after the skins have already softened gives the opposite result: a whole lentil that yields at once. The Parmigiano rind can go in early, because the small amount of salt it releases is spread across seven cups of liquid.
The third is the rest off the heat, which most recipes leave out. Farro goes on absorbing for a quarter of an hour after the pot stops boiling, so the consistency you judge at the stove is not the one reaching the table. Resting first and correcting afterwards is the only way to season accurately, and it is why this soup should be made slightly looser than you want it.
Texture and Moisture Control
The soup should be thick but still pourable, with the grains suspended rather than sitting in a puddle. The thickening comes from the lentils alone: as their outer layers soften, starch moves into the broth and gives it a natural body. Nothing else is needed, and any attempt to help it with flour or with a blender destroys the two textures the dish exists for.
Liquid management is straightforward if you hold to two rules. Add broth only when it is hot, and add it in 1/2 cup (120 ml) increments near the end rather than in one go. Farro will take up roughly three times its dry volume in liquid and the exact amount varies with the batch, so 7 cups (1.7 L) is a starting figure rather than a fixed one. Keep a cup of hot broth in reserve for the moment after the rest.
The two failures are opposite and both common. Cooked too long or stirred too hard, the lentils break down completely and the soup turns into a uniform brown puree with grains in it. Cooked too briefly or with too much liquid, it separates into broth and solids in the bowl within a minute. Stir from the bottom with a wooden spoon, gently, and stop cooking the moment the farro has a bite.
Professional Mise en Place
This soup is almost entirely make ahead, and it is better on the second day. The only thing worth doing at the last minute is the finishing oil and cheese.
Equipment and tools
Heavy bottomed pot of 5 qt (5 L) with a lid
Second small pan to keep the broth hot throughout
Fine sieve for rinsing the lentils and the farro
Wooden spoon long enough to reach the bottom of the pot
Prepared ahead
Soffritto vegetables chopped fine, up to 1 day ahead, covered and refrigerated
Lentils sorted and rinsed, farro rinsed and drained
Broth made and portioned, ready to be reheated
Whole soup cooked up to 2 days ahead and reheated to order
Service setup
Broth held hot beside the pot for adjusting consistency
Bowls warming, bread sliced and ready for the grill
Grated Parmigiano, pepper mill and finishing oil on the table
Pot stirred from the bottom before each service
Chef Tips
Buy lentils with a harvest year on the bag. After about two years the skins harden and the cooking time doubles, and no amount of simmering brings them back. Small highland lentils from a recent crop cook in under half an hour.
Keep a bag of Parmigiano rinds in the freezer. One rind in this pot does the work of a meat stock and costs nothing. Scrape the outer surface with a knife before it goes in, and take it out before serving rather than letting it melt into the soup.
To make it richer without meat, toast a tablespoon of the farro dry in a pan before adding it. The nutty note carries through the whole pot, a trick from the mountain kitchens where a little toasted grain made a thin soup taste fuller than it was.
Make double and freeze half before adding the farro. A lentil base freezes perfectly; farro that has been frozen and thawed turns soft and loses its bite. Cook the grain fresh into the thawed base and the result is as good as the first day.
Common Mistakes
Salting the lentils at the start. Salt toughens lentil skins, so the jacket stays hard while the inside turns to powder. Add it once the skins have softened, about 10 minutes after the farro goes in, and correct again after the rest.
Soaking the lentils. Small highland lentils are thin skinned and need no soaking. Soaked, they absorb too much water, split in the pot and thicken the soup into a puree before the farro is anywhere near ready.
Adding cold broth. Cold liquid drops the pot out of a simmer and interrupts both grains unevenly, which is how you end up with hard farro in a finished soup. Keep the broth hot in a second pan.
Browning the soffritto. Lentils have almost no fat of their own and nothing masks a roasted soffritto note in this soup. Twelve to fifteen minutes over medium low heat, soft and sweet, with no colour anywhere.
Too much tomato. It is a soup with tomato in it, not a tomato soup. Past about 3/4 cup (180 g) the acidity takes over and the earthy flavour of the grain and the pulse disappears behind it.
Serving it straight off the heat. Farro keeps drinking liquid for fifteen minutes after the pot stops boiling, so a soup that looked right at the stove arrives at the table too thick and underseasoned. Rest it, then correct it.
Wine Pairing
Orvieto Classico DOC: The Umbrian white that sits on the same table as this soup. Grechetto and Trebbiano on volcanic and clay soils give a dry wine with quiet acidity and an almond finish, light enough not to fight the lentils and mineral enough to cut the raw oil and the Parmigiano poured over at the end.
Torgiano Rosso Riserva DOCG: The serious Umbrian red, Sangiovese based and aged, and a genuinely good match for a soup with a Parmigiano rind in it. Its dried cherry and tobacco character meets the tomato without being pulled thin by the acidity, and the tannin is resolved enough after bottle age to sit beside the earthiness of the lentils rather than clash with it.
Offida Pecorino DOCG: From just over the Marche border, and the white to choose when the soup is made thick. Pecorino has more weight, more alcohol and a distinct herbal, saline edge that stands up to the rosemary in the pot. Its acidity keeps the palate clear through a dish that coats the mouth.
Rosso di Montalcino DOC: A Tuscan neighbour and the most flexible red on this list. Younger and brighter than its Brunello sibling, it brings sour cherry fruit and firm acidity that lifts the density of the farro, with tannin light enough not to turn dry against a dish that has no fat to soften it.
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC: The everyday bottle for this kind of cooking and the best value here. Deep coloured, soft, low in acid and generous in dark plum fruit, it wraps around the earthiness of the lentils rather than cutting through it. Serve it at around 61°F (16°C), a touch cooler than room temperature, or it turns heavy.
Storage & Reheating
Kept in an airtight container, this soup holds 4 days in the refrigerator and genuinely improves after one night, as the tomato and the rosemary settle into the grain. Cool it in a wide container rather than in the pot. It sets almost solid when cold, which is normal.
For the freezer, the best result comes from freezing the lentil base before the farro goes in and cooking the grain fresh on the day. If you freeze the finished soup, it keeps 3 months but the farro loses some of its bite. Use rigid containers, leave an inch of headroom, and thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
Reheat over medium low heat with 1/2 cup (120 ml) of hot broth or water stirred in at the start, adding more as it loosens, and stir from the bottom throughout since a thick soup scorches easily. Bring it just to the point of steaming rather than boiling, because a hard boil breaks the lentils that survived the first cooking. Finish every reheated bowl with fresh oil, cheese and pepper.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 5 servings without bread:
Calories: 385 kcal
Total Fat: 12 g
Saturated Fat: 2.5 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 9 g
Cholesterol: 6 mg
Sodium: 690 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 54 g
Fiber: 13 g
Total Sugars: 5 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 18 g
Lactose: 0.1 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, folate, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium
These figures are estimates. Sodium depends heavily on the broth used and on how much Parmigiano goes on at the table, and a slice of bread adds roughly 120 kcal.
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