Lentils, pasta and rice can stretch a meal like nobody’s business. Seriously, if you’ve got water, and any one of those ingredients, you are just a few random vegetables away from a complete meal.
The hard part is, everyone’s recipe will be a little different because obviously, the whole point is really not to follow a recipe, but rather to use up what you have sitting in your fridge so you don’t you have to toss your perfectly good small portions of food, into the trash.
Ingredients for Chicken Lentil Stew
3 tablespoons bacon fat
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup broccoli, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 ounces spinach, chopped
3/4 cup leftover shredded chicken
1/2 cup corn {I used canned}
1 cup lentils
4 cups chicken stock
1 {15oz} can stewed tomatoes
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
Directions
Saute the onions and carrots in bacon fat until softened. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant but not browned. Next add the cumin, coriander, paprika, salt and pepper and cook and stir together for 1 minute.
Stir in the lentils, chicken stock, tomatoes and their juices, and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 20 minutes.
Stir the chopped spinach and cook uncovered until the spinach wilts and them serve with a crusty piece of bread. Or toast. toast works too. 🙂
~Mavis
Sarah Koontz {Grounded & Surrounded} says
Lentil stews have become a go-to for me. My favorite thing to do is get a natural rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. We usually have 1 meal with chicken, starch, and veg. Then I shred up what is left of the rotisserie and make a casserole or salad. THEN I take the bones and make a stock (with leftover veggie scraps from the freezer) and then make a vegetable lentil soup with that stock. I feel like superwoman when I do this 😉 I mean, seriously….one small chicken = 3 full meals! I have never added stewed tomatoes to my soup, I will definitely try that next time. Thanks for the ideas!
Stephanie Thomas says
Hi Mavis,
I see so many of your recipes that I like, but I’m afraid that later when I need them I might not be able to find them. I was going to print them out but it will take a LOT of color ink to due to all the awesome photos. Are you able to offer a printer friendly version with no photos? That would be great! Thanks so much for sharing your creativity and love of cooking and gardening. Love your pallet gardens. Going to make a strawberry and herb garden this week:-)