Recipe Sharing: Thai Curried Lentil Vegetable Stew

I’ve been wanting to try a curried lentil recipe ever since I spied a few on my cousin’s Pinterest board (and her Facebook page – social media, it’s how I set my menu) and this cold, snowy weekend was the perfect time. Two recipes stuck out to me and I decided to combine them into one, which could go very bad, or (in this case) very good. Above is the final product, created from these two recipes: Curried Red Lentil Soup with Chickpeas and Quinoa and Vegan Red Lentil Soup. My recipe is not vegan since I used chicken stock, but you could easily make it vegan with vegetable stock and our grocery store only sells the plain old green lentils so I used those.

Thai Curried Lentil Vegetable Soup
1 tablespoon oil (I used coconut)
1/2 cup onion (chopped)
1/2 cup carrot (chopped)
1/2 cup celery (chopped)
1 cup butternut squash, cooked (I used 1 box frozen winter squash)
1 tablespoon garlic (chopped)
1-2 tablespoon ginger (chopped)
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 pinch ground nutmeg (or garam masala)
1 cup lentils
3-4 cups chicken stock (or vegetable broth)
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 cup quinoa (cooked, you can cook it in the soup, but be sure to increase your liquid accordingly)
1 (19 ounce) can chickpeas (rinsed and drained)
1/2 (14 ounce) can coconut milk (I used light)
1/3 cup cilantro (chopped)
salt and pepper to taste
Juice from 3 limes (or 1/3 can frozen limeade)

1. Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onions, carrots and celery and saute until tender, about 10-15 minutes.
2. Add the squash, garlic, ginger, curry powder, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg and saute until fragrant, about a minute.
3. Add the lentils, stock and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 10-15 minutes.
4. Add the chickpeas, quinoa, coconut milk, cilantro and salt and pepper, simmer 5-10 minutes.
5. Add lime juice, simmer additional 5 minutes. (If it seems too think, you can add more water and give it a good stir.)
6. Serve with a garnish of cilantro.

This recipe makes 6 good-sized servings of 1.5-2 cups each (about 200-225 calories per serving). Serve with flatbread and you have a hearty, filling (and delicious) meal. Liam ate this along with me, just picked out the chickpeas but otherwise gobbled it up. Simon was more doubtful and did not partake. I loved the flavors and added the limeade as an afterthought as I thought the recipe needed a little something and another similar recipe I had pinned had mentioned squeezing lime juice over the top, but all I had was some left over limeade so I used that instead and it gave it the perfect zing.

Enjoy!