Lentils with sweet potatoes, easy vegan spiced lentil dinner

This aromatic, comforting, filling, and light lentils with sweet potatoes recipe will be your new meatless favorite. It combines lentils, sweet potato, spinach and carrot with a wonderful fragrant spice combination that makes it so very comforting and filling.

Why I ❤️ it • Recipe • Ingredients • Preparation

Why I ❤️ it

Serve this delicious lentil with sweet potatoes dish and you will be making it again soon. There's so much going on here, so let me unpack it for you: very nutritious, light, easy to make, inexpensive, and tastes even better the next day (yay for leftovers!).

If you have the suspicion that I have borrowed more than a little inspiration from Indian cuisine, you are right. I have. I love their spices, so I incorporated some of my favorite ones into this dish.

Utensils and tools

• Mortar and pestle
• Large skillet

Ingredients

• Seeds from 12 cardamom pods
• ½ teaspoon of peppercorns
• ½ teaspoon of chili flakes
• 1 teaspoon of coarse salt
• ¼ cup of olive oil, divided
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 large white onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
• 1½ pound of sweet potatoes, (orange or purple), diced
• 2 large carrots, diced
• 1 cup of minced fresh spinach (optional, see notes)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups of dry lentils
• 2 cup of vegetable broth, divided

Preparation

Before starting, please make sure you have all the ingredients and utensils ready.

Step 1

Combine cardamom seeds, peppercorns, chili flakes and coarse salt. Crush with a mortar and pestle until it is ground.

Step 2

Heat half the olive oil in a large skillet over very low heat, add garlic cloves, and the mixture prepared above.

Cook and stir for 30 seconds, or until the ingredients release their aroma.

Step 3

Add the onions to the skillet, increase the heat to medium-low, and cook and stir until the onions turn translucent.

Stir in the turmeric powder, sweet potatoes, carrots, spinach, bay leaves and lentils. Stir until everything is well mixed.

Step 4

Pour in half the vegetable stock, and mix well. Cover and simmer until the liquid has evaporated (stir ever 3 minutes or so to prevent it from scorching).

Add the remaining stock, cover and simmer (stirring frequently) until the carrots are cooked through.

Step 5

Remove from the heat and drizzle with the remaining oil. Serve (see suggestions below).

Serving suggestions

You can eat this dish alone, or with some salad, or – my favorite – some white rice.

Variations

You can make this same recipe by substituting potatoes for sweet potatoes. You can also use whatever kind of sweet potato you find, though be mindful that cooking times and flavor may vary slightly.

Kale also makes a great substitution for spinach, and if you don't like either, you can leave the out.

If you would prefer it so, don't let all the stock evaporate in the end for a more curry-like consistency, this is perfect if you serve it with rice.

If you, like me, love spicy food, just add more chili flakes, as much as you want. This recipe produces a very mild spicy dish.

Top tips

Make sure the spices and garlic do not burn at any time of the process, as they will turn bitter.

Nutritional information

Calories: 354kcal - Carbohydrates: 50g - Protein: 18gFat: 10g - Saturated Fat: 1g - Sodium: 335mg - Potassium: 830mg - Fiber: 21g - Sugar: 5g - Vitamin A: 3590IU - Vitamin C: 11.4mg - Calcium: 59mg - Iron: 5.4mg

FAQs

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