Sundried Tomato Red Lentil Loaf Recipe

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Hey guys! This is Heather from HealthyVeganRecipes.net. So things are starting to feel like Christmas around here, we’ve got the Christmas music going. No snow yet but I’m sure we’ll get there soon.

And what I thought I would share with you guys today is a recipe that would be fantastic as part of your holiday meal. So what I’ve got for you is a lentil loaf which is a pretty popular vegan option for main dish.

And you can make it super super delicious by adding certain seasonings and what I’m gonna add is a sweet potato. A lot of my holiday recipes include sweet potatoes because I love them.

They are incredibly tasty and really nice and soft and just add a nice comforting texture to dish so we’re gonna do red lentils and sweet potato and I’ve got my red lentils already cooking here. They are excellent lentils to use because they cook really really fast and they’re also really soft.

A lot of people have trouble with lentil loafs because if you use the green or the brown lentils, they don’t mush up too much and so your loaf can wind up pretty crumbly.

But if you use the red lentil, they get really really soft and I’ll show you how the texture works with them. They take about 20 minutes to cook so pretty fast in the bean cooking world.

And as always if you want the recipe, head over to HealthyVeganRecipes.net. I’ll post all of the ingredients and the measurements and the direction there. For those of you who want to see how it’s done, that’s what we’re gonna do next.

So your starting your red lentils that look like this, they’re split in half that’s why they take so little time to cook. Then when they are cooked, your just gonna cook them by boiling them in water with no salt. They’re gonna look like this, they’re yellow and they wind up looking very very mushy and soft.

Then to this I’m gonna add my sweet potato that I have grated up. If you don’t want to grate your sweet potato, you can just chop it up and boil it and mix it in and kind of mash it.

But grating it works really well because it cooks fairly quickly and I just wanna soften it a little bit before I put this on the oven. That’s why I’m mixing it in here with the lentils.

And like I said a lot of my recipes that I like to suggest for holidays include sweet potato because it’s just an awesome holiday staple. But if you have too much sweet potato on your table already, you can totally swap this out for carrots or beets or any other type of root vegetable that you like would be excellent.

And I put together a whole bunch of ideas for you guys for holiday recipes. I’ll post a link to that with the video so you can check it out.

Now, you don’t add any salt while the lentils are cooking but then once you get the sweet potato in there you can sprinkle a little bit of salt in there and that will help the sweet potatoes soften up.

Once they soften, I’ll also gonna add in some onion and some mushrooms that I’ll chop up really really finely and again I just wanna get those in here just so they soften a little bit before this goes into the oven.

So all you’re looking to do here is just soften up the vegetables a little bit so I’ve got the onion and the mushrooms in here now as well. I’ve added a little bit more salt for those vegetables to help them soften.

And a good thing about adding the vegetables here rather than just wanna bake is they’re gonna release moisture as they cook so this mixture I’ve got here is looking pretty soggy. I also use quite a bit of water for the lentils so when I put it in the direction I’ll put less water than I use here.

So if you get a lot of water coming out from these vegetables you can just drain it off, just put the lid on and drain out a little bit. So once you’ve got the veggies soften up a little bit then you can move on to make this into a really nice thick batter I’m gonna call it for your loaf.

And what we’ll use is some ground flax seed. This gonna help the liquid in your mixture stick together. I’m gonna put two tablespoons in there, I’m also going to add some rolled oats that I’ve ground up to a flour.

You can use different type of flour if you like but I like to use rolled oats. They’re fairly easy to your digestive system and then I don’t have to keep a bunch of flour on hand and I’m going to put about four tablespoons in there.

Give it a stir and depending on how big your onion and your sweet potato more and how much liquid is in here, you might need to play with those measurements to make it work for you.

But what you want to have in the end is something that looks like it’s gonna stick together when you put it in the oven. So play up and down, I might need to add a little bit more and the other thing I’m gonna add to this butter to make it really thick and rich and taste good in your mouth is add some fat.

Fat really helps with that feeling in your mouth of something that’s really rich and satisfying. And what I’m gonna use is some nut or seed butter. I happen to have some flour in the fridge today but whatever kind you like. A neutral flavor is best like peanut probably won’t be the greatest because then you’ll have a peanut tasting loaf.

Although if you’re going to that, no worries, that would be great! You only need a little bit, it’s gonna get thin out in the butter but you just wanna have a little bit in there to kinda carry the flavor of the seasonings that we’re gonna add in here and then again like I said that mouth feeling of satisfying rich fat.

Alright, so as you stirred this up, the nut butter will kind of melt into the butter and make sure you stir it for a little while before you add more of anything because flax is kind of slow acting and it didn’t look like much at first but as I stir this around the flax is absorbing water and its gonna make this really super sticky.

Now, I like to have it a little bit drier of a loaf so I’m gonna add more oat flour but if you like a really moist loaf then don’t add more flour.

So make sure everything gets stirred through and they have a good texture going on and then you can add seasonings and I was thinking of taking this in a sweet direction with some orange and some ginger and some cranberries but then I remembered that I have some sundried tomatoes and I wanted to use those.

So I’m gonna go salty and I’m gonna just cut out some sundried tomatoes with my kitchen scissors right in there. I’m also going to press some garlic in here. I’ve got some thyme and some oregano and basil mix up together here and I’m just gonna sprinkle some in, get some margarine in here too.

And then I’m gonna put this into a loaf pan that I’ve lined with parchment paper, makes it really easy to take it out of the loaf pan and afterwards. Now I don’t know if you mom’s used to do this but Phil’s mom sure does and she tops off her meatloaf with a nice glazed so you can do the same thing with the lentil loafs and what I did today was just spread a little bit of ketchup on top.

You can get a little fancier, put some chutney on there, the cranberry apple chutney recipe that I have on my site would be awesome or some other type of tomato base sauce would be excellent as well.

I put mine on about half an hour before the loaf was finish so that it does not get too crispy on top but if you like that, go for it. put in on right in the beginning.

So one important tip on your loaf is when you take it out the oven, let it cool off for a good 15 minutes so that it can solidify a little bit and when you take it out on the pan it won’t fall apart. And when you cut it, it will be a little more solid than right when it’s piping out from the oven.

So there’s my loaf and I find it cuts best with a serrated type knife and then you can just cut slices of it. Serve it along with the rest of your holiday delicious meal and there you go, it’s really soft and moist inside becuase of the sweet potato.

I tried a little bite, it’s has a phenomenal flavor, a lot is due to the sweet potato and the sundried tomatoes. So that’s it for our holiday lentil loaf. Taste amazing! Pretty easy to make and really healthy, great combination for your holiday meal!

If you need some other ideas on what to make, you can check those out over at HealthyVeganRecipes.net and I will also post the rest of the directions for this guy of course.

So that’s it for me today, I hope you guys enjoyed and have fun planning your holiday meal.