BBQ Baked Lentils

Each week I prepare a pot of some type of bean dish to keep in the fridge and take to work with me for lunch every day (fortunately I don't mind, and even enjoy eating the same thing several days in a row). Today I made this recipe by Kate at Cooking During Stolen Moments. The result was delicious!!!! I wouldn't hesitate to serve this as a side dish at a cookout instead of the traditional baked beans. I also don't think that I'll ever buy BBQ sauce again and will continue to use this sauce, with a few modifications. Next time I'll try serving this as a main dish, over brown rice to form a complete protein as Kate suggests. I doubled the recipe to have enough to last me through the week. Also, this is a fairly spicy sauce (which I love), but for those who don't like spicy I would definitely tone down the red pepper flakes and hot sauce. Here's the way that I cooked the recipe, with some notes for things that I'd change next time.


BBQ-Baked Lentils

-1/2 lb. lentils
-4 c. water
-2 T. olive oil
-1 onion, diced
-2 stalks celery, diced
-2 carrots, peeled and diced
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-Salt and pepper, to taste
-1 1/2 c. barbecue sauce, bottled or homemade (recipe below)

1. Pour lentils and water into a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. 2. While lentils cook, heat olive oil in a small skillet. Add onion, celery, carrots and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until veggies are crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.
3. In a casserole dish, combine lentils, vegetables and barbecue sauce. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Serve as is for a side dish or over brown rice.

Homemade Barbecue Sauce

If using ketchup, rather than tomato sauce as the first ingredient, I would omit the honey and salt, as ketchup already contains so much sugar and salt.

-1 1/4 c. ketchup or 1 c. tomato sauce, 2 T. vinegar and 2 T. Worcestershire sauce
-1/4 c. brown sugar
-2 T. Worcestershire sauce
-2 T. honey (omit if using ketchup)
-2 t. garlic powder (next time I would halve the amount of garlic powder... I love garlic, but I found it overly strong in this sauce)
-2 T. Tabasco sauce (again, if you don't like spicy food I would halve, or omit this)
-1 t. cumin (next time I would halve the amount of cumin, I love cumin, but found it to be very strong in the sauce, which tasted good, just not my preference for BBQ sauce)
-1 t. salt (omit if using ketchup)
-1/2 t. crushed red pepper flakes (reduce or omit if not desiring spicy)

1. Stir all ingredients together until well combined. Store in refrigerator until use. Will keep for at least 1 week.

Shannon