red lentil recipe

An easy, healthy 30-minute vegan dinner with a thick red lentil tomato sauce with Italian spices and pasta.

Red Lentil Pasta Recipe

Olive oil

Garlic (minced)

Tomato passata

tomatoes

Red lentils

basil

oregano

Nutritional yeast

Salt

Vegetable broth

500 g Cooked Pasta (high protein pasta

Cook pasta

Cook the pasta by following instructions on the packaging. Rinse, drain, and set aside while making the sauce. Read my post above for tips on how to choose healthy pasta for this recipe.

Cook onion and garlic

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the diced onion and garlic and cook for 5 minutes until fragrant and golden in color.

Add rest of sauce ingredients

Add the tomato passata, canned chopped tomatoes, red lentils, dried basil, dried oregano, nutritional yeast, salt, and vegetable broth.

Stir and simmer

Stir all ingredients together, cover, bring to a light boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer the sauce for 15 minutes, stirring often.

Stir in cooked pasta

Uncover, stir in the cooked pasta and keep cooking under medium heat until the pasta are hot and flavor combined.

Serve

Serve immediately with chopped fresh basil leaves and vegan Parmesan if desired. The recipe serves 6 people.

Store

Store in the fridge in a sealed container for up to 3 days or freeze.

Storage

One of the go-to recipes on rotation in my own home, this vegan lentil dal is a hearty, delicious, and nutritious way to batch-cook for the week ahead.

Vegan Lentil Dal with Spinach

coconut oil ((or other cooking oil))

onion,

salt

garlic,

2 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped ((approx. 2 tablespoons))

2-3 rocket chillies, thinly sliced ((more or less depending on how you

cardamom pods ((optional))

tsp cumin

tsp turmeric

tsp ground fenugreek

tsp smoked paprika ((optional))

1x 14 oz (400 g) tin chopped tomatoes

(400 g) dried red split lentils, rinsed ((see notes))

(1.2 litres) water

oz (200 ml) coconut milk

oz (150 g) fresh spinach ((see notes))

tsp garam masala

fresh coriander, chopped ((optional))

Heat the oil in a large pan and add the chopped onion. Sprinkle with salt and cook on a medium heat for 6-8 minutes or until soft.

Add in the chopped garlic, ginger, and chilli, and cook for a further few minutes.

After a few minutes, bash the cardamom pods gently with the side of a knife and add to the pan along with the cumin, turmeric, fenugreek, and smoked paprika. Mix well and allow to cook for a minute or so, adding a little more oil if necessary.

Next, stir in the chopped tomatoes and cook for a few minutes. Swirl a little water around the empty tin and add this to the pan.

After a few minutes, add the lentils and the water/stock. Bring to a simmer, then turn down the heat and cook for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. Add more water if the dal seems too thick, bearing in mind there&#39;s a little more liquid to come from the coconut milk.

After 15 minutes, stir in the coconut milk. Sometimes the solids separate from the liquid in the tin, so you may need to scrape it out with a knife. Cook for another 5-10 minutes on low heat.

Meanwhile, start adding handfuls of the spinach to the pan and stir it in to help it wilt down into the curry. After 5-10 minutes, the lentils should be soft and the spinach mixed through evenly, but continue cooking if the lentils need longer.

Stir in the garam masala and fresh coriander and cook for another couple of minutes.

Adjust the seasoning to taste and serve with boiled rice or pilau rice (see serving suggestions for more ideas). The cardamom pods can be quite strong, so you may want to remove these or remind people not to eat them.📸 See recipe steps &gt;📖 Table of contents &gt;

Make this delicious Indian-inspired red lentil curry under 35 mins. Creamy and full-flavored curry that is gluten-free and can be made vegan. Serve it with a side of salad, rice/quinoa or any flatbreads. Instructions included for stovetop and instant pot.

Red Lentil Curry Recipe

(200 grams) red lentils ((split

water

oil (/ ghee or butter)

curry leaves (or bay leaf)

cinnamon

(1 medium) onions (fine chopped)

(3 medium) garlic cloves (grated/pressed)

(½ inch slice) ginger (grated/crushed)

green chili

salt ((more

Kashmiri chili powder (/ paprika (adjust to taste))

curry powder

garam masala ((adjust to taste))

kasuri methi ((dried fenugreek leaves))

heavy cream

coriander leaves (to garnish)

Add red lentils to a pot and rinse them thrice. Drain and pour water. Bring to a rolling boil on a high heat and reduce to medium.

Let cook until tender (al dente), for 10 mins. If you want you may skim the froth. Older lentils take longer to cook. While the lentils cook, chop and prepare the other ingredients.

Heat oil/ghee in a medium pan. Add the whole spices, onions, green chilies and curry leaves. Saute until golden, for about 8 mins.

Stir in ginger garlic and saute for a minute, until aromatic.

Stir in the curry powder, garam masala and Kashmiri chili powder, followed by tomatoes & (a splash of water if using fresh tomatoes). Cover and cook until the tomatoes break down.

Saute for 1 to 2 mins until the mixture turns aromatic.

Add the red lentils along with the leftover stock/ water. Mix well and more water as needed. You will need about ½ cup. Bring it to a boil and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.

If you want mash some of the lentils with the back of the spoon. Stir in kasuri methi and cream. Simmer for 2 minutes.

Taste test. If you want, add more salt, garam masala or black pepper for heat.

Garnish with coriander leaves and squeeze some lemon juice.

Serve red lentil curry over rice or with Naan, Chapati, Roti or any other flatbreads.

How to make Red Lentil Curry

You don&#39;t need to cook the lentils separately. Make the masala first, add the lentils and pressure cook for 7 minutes. Wait for natural pressure release and add kasuri methi and cream.

Instant Pot Red Lentil Curry

You don&#39;t need to cook the lentils separately. Make the masala first, add the lentils to the cooker.  Pressure cook for 2 to 3 whistles on a medium heat. Wait for the pressure to drop and add kasuri methi and cream. If you want make a extra tadka.

Stovetop Indian Pressure Cooker

This was delicious and came together really quickly! I added paneer also. Really impressed with the quality of recipes on this site! Ive made a ton of Indian recipes from YouTube or random internet sources. I made Josh Weissmans butter chicken also. They were all good but none really tasted like restaurant quality. This is fantastic! Ill definitely be trying more recipies

Amazing lentil curry! I threw in some roasted cauliflower, eggplants and carrots. Also made your curry powder because I only had the ground spices. Will make this again!!!

Spectacular lentil curry! We have made it thrice and my 90 yr old Mom loves it. We are trying a lot of your recipes. Thank you for the amazing work

This lentil curry is so simple and so good. Made a large batch to freeze. So didn't add yogurt or cream. It still tastes delish.

My whole family enjoyed this dish and two of them are spice adverse! Huge thanks for sharing.

This was delicious. Thank you so much for sharing. I didn’t have the Kashmiri chili but used a combination of chili powder and smoked paprika. Also made the curry powder with your suggested spices. I didn’t have dried fenugreek so used some fresh when sautéing the onions. I must tell you that the only reason I had fresh fenugreek is because I planted it to be able to prepare one of your other recipes. There was absolutely no fresh fenugreek to be found in any grocery store nor were there fenugreek seeds at any nursery. So I ordered the seeds from Amazon, waited for the appropriate time to plant them, waited for the plants to be ready to harvest and FINALLY made your recipe for methi matar malai (which we enjoyed). 
Thanks again.

This is the best lentil curry I ever made. I didn't have kasuri and yogurt but still it turned out yummy. Thank you for posting. Will try out more recipes from here

Hearty and belly-warming red lentil curry! Loved it with jasmine rice &amp; mango achar. Didn’t have cream or yogurt so cooked the lentils in almond milk. We eat plant-based so cooked it in coconut oil. Overall it tastes fabulous.

Best red lentil curry! I used coconut yogurt for the creamy goodness and it turned out amazing

I tried the red lentil curry and my wife loved it. Her late mother used to cook red lentil but differently.
My son, who is vegetarian, asked me for the recipe. But I don't think he's tried it yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPLaVkwAfGg

Find the written recipe here on our website - https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/red-lentil-curry/

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Top 3 red lentil recipe recipes from across the web

The most viewed red lentil recipe recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

Top Tags

Red Lentil Pasta Recipe

Vegan Lentil Dal with Spinach

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The most viewed red lentil recipe recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine