A bit of time has passed since my last food post – so today I’m really excited to share this simple recipe for 10-minute savory lentils!
I say “10 minutes” because that’s how long the cook time is. Of course there are a few minutes of chopping to do beforehand, but all in all this recipe is easy, fast, and most importantly tasty!
Lentils are a powerhouse when it comes to nutrition. They’re super high in both protein and fiber, but also contain large amounts of potassium, folate, iron (Did you know just 100 grams of lentils provides 45% of your daily iron needs?), and manganese. Lentils are also easier on the stomach to digest than beans. So for anyone looking to eat more plant-based and high protein, lentils can be a good swap over beans if you have a sensitive stomach. This is one of the reasons I love to cook with lentils.
I usually eat lentils over brown rice and serve with various sauces. In this particular recipe, I combined dry lentils in my pressure cooker with a few simple vegetables and spices to make a healthy meal in minutes. For those that don’t have a pressure cooker, this recipe will work fine on a stove top as well!
Cooking with SUPER Lentils
I forgot to mention, this dish was the first time I used lentils from my new Emergency Essentials SuperPail! I recently bought a 44 lb bucket of dry lentils (yes, you read that number correctly) at a great value from this store online. It came out to be priced at $1.70 per lb, which is the best deal I’ve come across for lentils yet! So I ordered their SuperPail and now I’ll have lentils for….years? We’ll see! I do expect it to last me a very long time though. P.S. That’s my cat Sneakers in the photo above checking out my new lentils stash.
I’m always on the hunt for a good deal, and since I enjoy buying my grains/beans in bulk whenever I can, I couldn’t pass this opportunity up. This post isn’t sponsored by Emergency Essentials in any way – I just wanted to mention where I got my lentils, and note that they have many other bulk products (flours, rice, etc.) that I look forward to trying from them in the future. I thought my savory lentils dish was delicious, so I believe in the quality of their products so far… Time will tell if that remains true!
Back to the recipe though. Let’s dive into the simple steps below.
Step 1: Chop Your Vegetables/Herbs
I didn’t want to rely on salt too heavily for this recipe, so instead I decided to pick a few vegetables and an herb that I knew would be a good base for some flavor. I chose carrots, yellow onion, and fresh parsley. I thought about adding a tiny bit of celery as well, but decided not to at the last minute. This was just a personal preference, but I think you could add it if you like.
Step 1 of 2 is just to mince these three things until they are pretty small. I didn’t want big chunks of anything in this dish, so I minced my parsley and onion pretty finely.
As for the carrots, I’ll let you in on my super secret tip for mincing carrots in seconds. I trim the ends, chop the carrots into large chunks, throw them in my blender, and pulse for a few seconds. BAM! Instant minced/grated carrot!
When I’m feeling especially lazy I rely on my blender for mincing. This technique works especially well for things like carrots, but doesn’t work for everything (I don’t recommend trying this with a tomato, it’ll just liquefy). I blender-chop with carrots, cauliflower, apples, and things of that nature. It works pretty well most of the time!
So once your carrots, onion, and parsley are minced, add them to your pressure cooker pot, or stove pot.
Step 2: Cook for 10-ish Minutes
Step 2 of 2 is to add your minced ingredients to your pot with the remaining ingredients, and cook! I set my Instant Pot to pressure cook for 10 minutes and it turned out great. If you’re doing this on the stove, you’ll want to bring the pot to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 10-15 minutes until the lentils are cooked.
10-Minute Savory Lentils
There you have it – 10-minute savory lentils! I ate mine over brown rice and squeezed a tiny bit of fresh lemon juice on top. At this stage, you can season it to taste if you want to adjust it after it’s done cooking and before you serve. There really isn’t much to it though. Chop veggies, add everything to a pot, cook for 10 minutes, done.
I used the ‘meal-prep’ tag on this savory lentils post because the amounts I used gave me enough lentil mixture (when served with rice) to eat this for a few days. Most of my cooking is done in larger batches like this. I love leftovers and have no problem eating the same thing for multiple days. So cooking a big pot of these savory lentils is no problem for me! I look forward to eating them all week.
I think in the future I could make small changes to this recipe to get slightly different outcomes (for variety). For example, swapping parsley for sage or rosemary. Another idea I had just now is to add mushrooms, or change up what vegetables I use, etc. I can easily see this as a new staple go-to for me when I’m not in the mood to cook but want something fast! Anyway, I hope you liked this simple post for 10-minute savory lentils. It’s no-fuss, a bit no-frills, simple, healthy, nutritious, cheap, and filling all at the same time. Enjoy!
10-Minute Savory Lentils
Ingredients
- 2 cups dry lentils
- 4 cups low sodium vegetable broth
- 1 TBS soy sauce*
- 4 large carrots
- 1/2 large yellow onion
- Small handful of fresh parsley
- A few shakes of pepper
- Optional: 1 celery stalk minced
- Optional: 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- Optional: 1/2 tsp onion powder
Instructions
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Chop the carrots, onion, and parsley until they are finely diced.*
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Put all ingredients in your Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker (or pot on stove)
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Pressure cook for 10 minutes (for stove top: bring to a boil then simmer for 10 minutes until liquid is absorbed)
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Adjust seasoning if needed, and serve!
Notes
* To chop carrots super fast – cut them into large chunks then put them into your blender. Pulse/blend on low for a few seconds until the carrots have become diced/minced.
