Lentils with Onions and Garlic

Wednesday is recipe day at CookingManager.Com.

This easy, cheap and healthy dish can be served hot and tastes even better cold the next day.  The flavor of the cumin, onions and garlic turn ordinary lentils into something special. It works in the pressure cooker too.

If you use a crockpot, skip the sauteing. Just add everything at once and make sure to fill the pot at least halfway.

Lentils with Onions and Garlic

Ingredients:

Two tablespoons olive oil.

Two teaspoons whole cumin seeds. You can substitute powdered cumin, just add it at the end.

Six cloves of garlic.

Two to three onions, peeled.

Two cups of brown lentils, sorted for stones and rinsed.

Four cups of water.

Salt to taste.

Instructions:

Place garlic in the food processor and chop till fine. Add the onions and chop once again. You can do it by hand too. It doesn’t matter if the pieces are sliced rather than chopped.

Heat the oil in a large pot and brown the cumin seeds for a few minutes, stirring every minute or so.

Add onions and garlic to the cumin seed and saute for five or ten minutes, until soft.

Add lentils and water. Heat until boiling, then lower the heat and cook for 60 minutes. You may need to add extra water. If using a pressure cooker cook for 20 minutes.

When the lentils are soft, add salt and serve. Salting at the end helps the lentils retain their color.

You can serve this as a side dish, a vegetarian main course, or even an appetizer. It keeps well in the refrigerator or freezer. Don’t be afraid to play with the proportions or spices.

If you enjoyed this post you may also like:

Cool Summer Chickpea Stew

Tomato Sauce in the Pressure Cooker

Summer Fruit Cooked in the Microwave

Keep Hot Foods Hot and Cold Foods Cold

This post appeared in the October Carnival of Superfoods: Beans and Lentils.

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Comments ( 8 )

[...] Cooking Manager: Lentils with Onions and Garlic [...]

Review with Lentils » Here in HP, Highland Park, New Jersey blog added these pithy words on Nov 20 09 at 4:16 AM

How many does it serve?

Chaya Erez added these pithy words on Aug 14 09 at 12:33 PM

Chaya, good question. I would say six as a main course and more as a side dish.

Hannah added these pithy words on Aug 14 09 at 1:33 PM

I make this with the juice of a lemon and some grated lemon zest. Shufersal makes a nice lentil/ mung bean mix that works great with cumin, lemon and garlic.

Abbi added these pithy words on Aug 16 09 at 10:51 PM

Crockpotting this would be a great way to have the side dish ready when the main meal is ready!

Thank you for joining the first October Fest Carnival of Super Foods! This week’s theme is broth/stock. Hope to see you back!
Katie

PS – Please add the link to the carnival in your post.

Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship added these pithy words on Oct 06 09 at 10:19 AM

Thanks Katie. I included it.

Hannah added these pithy words on Oct 07 09 at 11:45 PM

I make a similar recipe, often using chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned) in place of part of the water.

I also recommend adding some chopped carrots and something green like a zucchini or some parsley.

If someone you are cooking for doesn’t like the flavor of cumin, green spices like basil, marjoram and bay leaf also work nicely with lentils.

AR added these pithy words on Jul 02 10 at 3:15 PM

Thanks for those ideas, AR and Miriam.

Hannah added these pithy words on Jul 04 10 at 2:56 PM

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