French Lentils with Blue Cheese Butter
and spinach salad
Add a flavorful finishing touch to tonight's creamy lentils with a compound butter made with blue cheese.
Smarts: Compound butters can be frozen for up to a few months. Use them to add flavor and richness to soup, roasted vegetables, or toast.
Ingredients
- Lentils, French or green, dried - 1 1/2 cups
- Onions, medium - 1, diced
- Butter - 4 Tbsp
- Cheese, blue - 2 oz, crumbled (sub feta or goat cheese)
- Thyme, dried - 1/2 tsp
- Chives - 1 tsp, chopped
- Oil, cooking - 1 Tbsp
- Stock, any type - 3 cups
- Salt - 1/2 tsp
- Cucumbers - 6 oz, diced
- Tomatoes, grape or cherry - 1 cup, halved
- Vinegar, balsamic - 1 Tbsp
- Honey - 1 tsp
- Mustard, Dijon - 2 tsp
- Oil, olive - 3 Tbsp
- Spinach - 8 oz
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Lentils – Rinse lentils and soak in water overnight or for at least 8 hours. (Can be done 1 day ahead)
- Onions - Dice onions. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Make blue cheese butter - Melt butter in the microwave. Stir in crumbled blue cheese and thyme. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Cucumbers / Tomatoes / Chives - Prep as directed.
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Make
- Drain lentils and discard water.
- Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add cooking oil and then onions to heated oil. Saute until starting to soften, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add drained lentils, stock, and salt. Cover and bring to a simmer. Simmer, uncovered, until lentils are tender, ~10 minutes. Add some more stock or water if liquid cooks off before lentils are tender. (Note: If you didn’t soak your lentils before starting, increase the amount of stock you add by 50% and plan to simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them and add additional liquid if needed.)
- While lentils simmer, in a large bowl whisk together vinegar, honey, and mustard. Add olive oil while whisking. Top dressing with spinach, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Toss everything to combine.
- Taste lentils and season with some salt and pepper.
- Divide lentils between serving bowls and top each bowl with blue cheese butter. Add chives on top.
- Serve lentils with salad on the side. Enjoy!
Nutrition Facts
Reviews
Ratings
35 reviews
The bleu cheese butter is so good! I forgot to marinate, but we grilled the steak and it was very flavorful anyway, especially with the topping.
0 HelpfulThis was crazy good. I thought I don't like lentils. Then I put this blue cheese butter on them...maybe I love them
0 HelpfulWhat's not to love about steak and butter!? I added sautéed mushrooms. It was an easy meal.
0 HelpfulI really love the blue cheese butter. I usually like steak with just salt & pepper but the blue cheese butter is the exception.
0 Helpful