The lentil is one of the most produced and consumed legumes in the world, being rich in essential amino acids and a source of fiber, complex carbohydrates and the vitamin B-complex. The aim of this study was to make a comparative evaluation of the bioactive compound profiles of different extracts of fresh lentils obtained using distilled water and ethanol (99.5%) as solvents. For this purpose, the antioxidant activity was determined using the DPPH-radical scavenging, reducing power assay and ABTS-radical scavenging methods and the results presented as µmoL of Trolox Equivalent per gram of sample (µmoL Trolox EQ/g). The total phenolic compound, flavonoid and condensed tannin contents were also determined. The results obtained showed that for DPPH-radical scavenging, the aqueous extract presented an antioxidant activity of 161.97 µmoL Trolox EQ/g, whereas for the ethanolic extract, this value was 1.16 µmoL Trolox EQ/g. In the reducing power assay, the antioxidant activity reached 100.57 µmoL Trolox EQ/g for the aqueous extract and 3.06 µmoL Trolox EQ/g for the ethanolic extract. Antioxidant activities of 89.62 and 11.78 µmoL Trolox EQ/g were observed for the aqueous and ethanolic extracts, respectively, when evaluated by the ABTS-radical scavenging method. Regarding the bioactive compound profile, the aqueous and ethanolic extracts exhibited, respectively, 7.16 and 0.42 mg of gallic acid equivalents (GAE/g) for total phenolics. The flavonoid content was 1.27 mg of catechin equivalents (CE/g) for the aqueous extract and 0.91 CE/g for the ethanolic extract, while for the condensed tannins, values of 3.45 and 0.31 CE/g were found for the aqueous and ethanolic extracts, respectively. Thus it was shown that the aqueous extraction from fresh lentil grains was the most appropriate method to recover the bioactive compounds and to obtain extracts with greater antioxidant capacity as compared to ethanolic extraction.