Lentil salad with chicken and Brussels

THIS GORGEOUS BEAUTY!

Sorry to shout.

Lemme try again.

This gorgeous beauty looks so fancy schmancy but it has only THREE ingreds (plus a dressing).  That’s it!  Do you want this on your dinner table?  Allow me to answer.  You do.

First make the dressing.  It’s a tahini based dressing with a lemony kick.

It’s made with pantry staples so you’ll likely have everything on hand already.

Lemon Tahini Dressing

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 tsp garlic infused olive oil
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper

Directions:

Whisk everything but the olive oil together in a large mixing bowl until uniformly mixed, then pour in olive oil and whisk until creamy and smooth and emulsified.

I used fresh lemons in this recipe but you can use juice from a bottle just the same.  I also used garlic infused olive oil rather than fresh garlic, but feel free to swap in 1 minced garlic clove for the oil if you don’t have issues with fodmaps.

The rest of the ingredients are: lentils, chicken, and Brussels sprouts.  Which meets my basic hippie formula of carb, protein, veg.  In this case I change the carb from a grain to a lentil, so it’s extra protein packed.  😛

I baked two chicken breasts at 350 degrees (covered in foil) for 30 minutes and then let them rest before dicing them.

I also roasted the Brussels sprouts at the same time.

I legit thought 2 pounds of Brussels would be enough for us all but we ate them ALL.  My kids were actually fighting over them.  How many pounds do I need to buy to meet our family’s cruciferous needs?!?!

Time to toss.

Lentil Salad with Brussels sprouts and Chicken

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cup cooked black/beluga lentils (~1 heaping cup uncooked)
• 2 chicken breasts
• 2 pounds Brussels sprouts
• lemon tahini dressing (see recipe above)

Directions:

Make the dressing following the instructions above.

To make the lentils, add 1 heaping cup of black or beluga lentils to 3 cups of water (along with one bay leaf if you have it).  Bring water to a boil and simmer on low until the lentils are tender (~20 minutes). Then set aside (and remove the bay leaf) to let them cool.

Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees and prep the chicken and Brussels sprouts.

For the chicken, grease a glass baking dish with oil and add two chicken breasts and cover with foil.  Cook for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

For the sprouts, trim the stems and halve or quarter them to uniform sizes and toss in 2 tbsp olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt.  Spread out onto a large baking sheet and cook for 30 minutes or until they are soft with nicely browned parts.

Once you have everything prepared, it’s just time to assemble.

Toss the lentils in 3/4 of the dressing, add the chicken and the rest of the dressing and mix again.  And finally fold in the Brussels.

You can easily prep this in advance by cooking the three components and making the dressing up to a few days beforehand.

You can also shorten the prep time immensely (or make it hands off) by using a pressure cooker or slow cooker for the lentils and/or chicken.

Perfect for a week day.  Do the main cooking when you have a block of free time and then assemble it whenever you are ready to eat.