Brown lentils with sausage

Lentils are a great choice from nutrition perspective and with sausage they go incredibly well. They are high in iron, magnesium and potassium and low in fat and sugar, so even a perfect choice for a low carb-diet.

I really like to use lentils since they go perfectly with my favorite oriental spices: cumin, cinnamon, cardamom and coriander.

This recipe is a very simple one, though –  both from number of ingredients perspective as well as difficulty. And the price per portion is ridiculously cheap: 30 cents per portion!!!

lentils with sausageLentils with sausage
Servings: 6 (0.3 eur/portion)
Cooking time: 1 hour
Difficulty: easy

Ingredients

  • 2 cups of brown lentils (0.4 eur)
  • 3 carrots (0.2 eur)
  • 1 big onion (0.2 eur)
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 150 ml tomato paste (0.2 eur)
  • 250 ml of chicken broth
  • 100 g of sausage (your choice, I used the blood sausage morcilla) (1 eur)
  • 1 tsp of cumin
  • 1 tsp of sweet paprika
  • thyme (optional)

Directions

  1. In a big wok saute the onion in a bit of sunflower oil until it gets golden.
  2. Add the 3 cuts cut in round pieces and saute for additional 5 min.
  3. After 5 min you can add the cumin and paprika and let them blend for 1 min.
  4. Put in the cut garlic (there is a tomato I had to use, since it was going bad, but you don’t have to).
  5. Add the washed lentils and steer until they soak in all the liquid.
  6. You can now add the tomato paste and the broth, bring everything to boil and then cover it with a lid and let it simmer for 20-30 min on low fire.
  7. In the meantime you can fry a bit the sausage. This won’t only help to dissolve and take out some of the fat, but it will also make it taste better.
  8. After the 30 min, you can add the sausage and a tiny branch of thyme and let it simmer with the lid on until the lentils get tender.
  9. And here’s how it should look:

If you would like to see more ideas for low-carb and high protein dishes, you can check my category here.