Warm lentil salad with lemon dijon vinaigrette

I don't know about you, but after all of the Christmas goodies I'm about ready for a nice salad.

I've been wanting to try French lentils in a recipe for some time now. They are so beautiful. As I did some hopping around on the computer for fun recipe ideas, I found that there are true French lentils and then there are impostor French lentils. I'm probably the last one to know this fact. Oh well, whatcha gonna do?!

Anyway, the real French lentils are called lentilles du Puy and are grown in volcanic soil in France. Hop over here for some great info on the different types of lentils.

I found a lot of variations of this salad and in the end did a bit of mixing and matching to come up with what I feel is a pretty darn tasty salad.



Warm Lentil Salad with Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette
by theUngourmet

approximately four servings

1/2 cup French lentils
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 clove chopped garlic
1/3 cup chopped red bell peppers
2 sprigs fresh thyme
cracked pepper
1/2 cup dry Marsala wine
1 cup vegetable broth

1 package of Mache or baby salad greens

Vinaigrette

juice from 1 lemon
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp Dijon mustard

Garnish

cooked crumbled bacon
feta cheese

Sort and rinse lentils. In a 4 qt saucepan saute garlic in olive oil. Add the lentils, red peppers, thyme sprigs, pepper, Marsala, and veggie broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low, cover and simmer until just tender (not mushy), about 40 minutes or so.

Drain and allow to cool a bit. Remove thyme sprigs. Whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, and Dijon. Toss with lentils.

Place a good sized handful of Mache on a plate, add about a 1/2 cup of lentils over greens. Top with crumbled bacon and feta.

Print recipe

This is so delightful! Not too heavy! It could be used as a side dish or light main dish with some crusty bread.

Give this a try, I know you'll love it!