Introduction

This is a completely vegan hamburger-helper style meal that relies on lentils instead of meat. It has a tomato-based sauce with smoked paprika.

This meal has a high potential for working-ahead: you can freeze ingredients, mix the spices and cook the lentils and pasta beforehand to minimize the amount of time spent at dinnertime. It’s a quick and popular dinner.

This recipe is completely vegan and doesn’t even rely on a bevy of vegan substitutes to achieve it.

This recipe will feed a family of four - potentially with some leftovers.

Materials

Everyday Pan Saucepan Pot Cutting Board Chef’s knife Wooden spoon Small bowl Cookie sheet Parchment paper Strainer

Ingredients

Freeze-Ahead

1x White or yellow onion 1x bell pepper - your favorite color 9 oz baby bella mushrooms

Pantry

1 (14 oz.) Can tomato sauce 1 (14 oz.) Can diced tomatoes 1-4 tablespoons of tomato paste 3/4 cup brown lentils 3 tbsp minced garlic Olive oil Vegetable broth Dash of apple cider vinegar

Spices

2 bay leaves 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika 1/2 tsp dried oregano 1/2 tsp dried thyme Salt and pepper to taste

Refrigerator

2 tablespoons soy sauce Fresh parsely (or dried)

Steps

Well Before

The fresh vegetables can be cut and frozen well before the dinner needs to be made, and the dry ingredients and spices can be measured out and stored as well.

Bell Pepper and Onion

Get your cutting board and chef’s knife and dice the onion and red pepper. Cover your baking sheet in parchment paper and spread the diced onion and bell pepper out on the sheet.

Mushrooms

The mushrooms can be frozen as well, but they need to be slightly cooked beforehand.

If the cookie sheet can’t accommodate the mushrooms in addition to the onions and bell pepper, prepare another baking sheet with parchment paper.

Wash your mushrooms in a strainer, then rough chop them on your cutting board.

Put your Everyday Pan on the stovetop on medium heat. Let it heat up a minute or two, then pour in 1 tbsp olive oil. Let the oil come up to temperature, then dump the chopped mushrooms in the pan. Lightly salt the mushrooms. With your wooden spoon, stir them to coat in oil. Leave sit for a few minutes until the mushrooms start to sweat. Cook the mushrooms or another minute or two - look for them to reduce in size. Then, spread the cooked mushrooms on the prepared baking sheet.

Put the onions, bell peppers and mush rooms in the freezer overnight. In the morning, package the onion and bell pepper into one plastic freezer bag, and the mushrooms into another.

Measure out the 3/4 cup of lentils and 2 cups of elbow pasta into freezer bags.

Combine all of the spices and store them in a sealable container.

Take everything prepared and put it into a large freezer bag and stick it all into the freezer for storage.

Spices

Mix all of the spices (minus the bay leaves) together and store in a small, sealable container. Label with this recipe’s name.

Night before or morning of

The pasta and lentils can be cooked the prior to dinner time and stored in the fridge until ready. This will also give the pasta time to dry out a bit so that it doesn’t make the sauce runnier when you add it in.

Lentils

Rinse your lentils and remove any foreign debris from them. I only say that to cover myself. Despite what the packages say, I’ve never had any foreign debris in my lentils.

Put your saucepan on the stovetop and put the lentils into it. Cover the lentils with vegetable broth and turn the burner to highest heat. When the broth boils, start a timer for 20 minutes. Monitor the lentils and ensure they are covered with broth throughout the process.

When the 20 minutes is up, use a strainer to get rid of any excess liquid and then store the cooked lentils in the refrigerator until the next day.

Pasta

Simultaneously, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. Once boiling, put in the pasta and start a timer for 7 minutes. When expired, sample the pasta for firmness and continue cooking, checking the pasta in 30s increments for firmness until it meets your taste. Dump the pasta in a strainer and rinse with cold water. Toss the pasta to get rid of excess water, but don’t over toss and damage the pasta. Place it on a towel and let more excess water drip away, no more than 20 minutes. Place in a container and store in the refrigerator overnight with the container lid slightly cracked to allow moisture to escape.

At Dinnertime

Set your Everyday Pan on the stovetop and set to medium-high heat. Let it heat up then add 1-2 tablespoons of oil. Allow the oil to hedat up, then dump in the frozen onion and bell pepper. Turn the heat up to its highest to boil off some of the excess water. When the excess water is mostly gone, reduce heat to medium-high and saute the onion and pepper until the onion is translucent - 3 minutes or so.

Add in the frozen mushrooms and maintain temperature to get rid of more excess water. After most of it is gone, reduce to medium heat and add in the garlic and spices. Mix well to coat everything.

During this, gather the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce and bay leaves. Open the diced tomatoes and drain as much of the liquid as you can into a bowl, and set aside for later use. Add the drained diced tomatoes and the rest of the gathered ingredients to the Everyday Pan and mix. Bring the sauce to a simmer and then reduce the heat to low. Let the sauce simmer for at least 10 minutes, but longer is better. During this process, adjust the thickness of the sauce by using more tomato paste if it’s too runny, and the reserved liquid from the diced tomatoes if it’s too thick. Taste the sauce and add salt and pepper to taste, and possibly more apple cider vinegar. Another means of thickening the sauce is to toss a parmesan rind into it while it simmers. This also adds some additional flavor. The pasta and lentils will absorb some of the water and thicken the sauce, so don’t make it too thick.

After the sauce is finished simmering, add in the pasta and lentils and mix well. Let everything come up to temperature. Monitor the thickness of the sauce and adjust as necessary.

Once everything is warmed through, you can serve it and garnish with fresh parsely, sour cream, parmesan cheese or whatever you want.