After yesterday’s pantry cleaning extravaganza, I realized that I have tons of lentils, so I went searching for a recipe that was something different from the lentils/onions/tomato/carrot soupish-sort-of-thing that I’ve done to death. I found a yummy looking lentil and mushroom soup online, which I tweaked (quite a lot actually). What I came up with was good, filling, healthy … but lacked something. It’s missing some essential *zing* and I can’t figure out what.
One thing is that after cooking, this is most decidedly not a soup. It doesn’t even retain enough liquid to be called a stew. It’s definitely lentil-y and mushroom-y, but more along the lines of a casserole or ragout maybe? I don’t know. But not a soup.
If anyone has any suggestions or thoughts … let me know. The base of this was good enough that I’m willing to put some time and effort into making it work, whether as a soup, stew, casserole, or whatever.
Recipe for Lentils + Mushrooms
- 2 cups lentils, picked over and rinsed
- 12 oz mushrooms (I used a combination of portabello and button)
- 32 oz broth of some kind (I used chicken, you could use vegetable to make a vegetarian version)
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 stalk celery, chopped
- 4 teaspoons chopped fresh sage (about 8 large leaves)
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- Freshly ground pepper to taste
- Optional Garnish: reduced-fat sour cream or yogurt, chopped chives or parsley
Carefully clean and rinse your mushrooms, then chop them into a large dice. Set aside for later.
Heat oil in a 4- to 6-quart Dutch oven or soup pot over medium- high heat. Add onion, garlic, celery and sage and stir until the onion begins to soften (about 3 mins). Stir in lentils and chopped mushrooms for another 1 minute. Add the broth and any mushroom liquid (if you used dried mushrooms). Increase heat to high and bring the soup to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender, 35 to 45 minutes. Stir in vinegar. Season with pepper.
Garnish each serving with sour cream or yogurt (I used a spoon of Fage 2% Greek yogurt) and sprinkle with chives or parsley (I used garlic chives from my front garden).
Notes+Variations:
You can use any variety of mushroom you want. If you use dried mushrooms, such as porcini or shitake, rehydrate them in about 1 cup of warm water for 30 minutes or so, then drain and rinse before chopping. As long as you have between 8-12 oz of mushrooms of any kind, this recipe will work. Reserve the strained mushroom liquid to add to the stew for extra flavor.
The original recipe called for the use of a stick blender to blend this completely or partially for a creamier texture. However I didn’t have enough liquid left after 35 mins of simmering to make this feasible. So I didn’t.
You can substitute any kind of veggie or mushroom broth for the chicken broth to have a vegetarian/vegan version of this. Without the sour cream or yogurt garnish, this recipe is Vegan.
Nutritional Info:
Serving size: 1 cup (recipe makes 7 servings). Cals: 270. Fat: 5.3g. Sodium: 421mg. Carb: 37.8g. Fiber 17.9g. Sugar: 3.1g. Protein: 18.2g.
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