crock pot lentils

*This is a guest blog post from one of our favorite health & fitness bloggers Kelly. Please follow her fitness experiences and delicious recipes! check out her blog. 

Eating healthy isn’t always easy, there are a million recipes out there, but I find it hard to wade through the ones that taste good, the ones that don’t take a million years, and the ones that my husband will also eat.

My mother-in-law makes a traditional Greek dish with lentils. I love it, and my husband does too. Traditionally, she makes it in a stockpot, but with a toddler and a baby, I don’t always have the time or patience to do that. I started experimenting with making them in the crockpot and I finally nailed down the perfect recipe. I will say they taste best if you have the time to make them on the stove because the garlic and onion flavor really has time to sink in, but the crockpot is a good second place!

Serving Size: 4-6

Ingredients:
2 cups Green Lentils
4.5 cups Low Sodium Vegetable Broth
4 Carrots, chopped
3 Celery Stalks, chopped
1 Yellow Onion, diced
3 Garlic Cloves, diced
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
1 tsp. Dried Basil
1 tsp. Dried Parsley
1 Bay Leaf
1.5 cups Water

Instructions:

Clean and sort the lentils. Sometimes you can find little pebbles mixed in with the lentils so you just want to make sure to clean them. I tend to pour them on a paper towel and spread them out, and then I lift up the paper towel and pour the lentils into the measuring cup, using the towel like a funnel.

If you food prep, prep your carrots and celery during that time. I do this so that the only thing I need to do is dice the onion in garlic. I peel them and then throw them into my small food processor.

Pour all ingredients into the crockpot. I tend to layer the harder to cook items in first, like carrots, but it doesn’t matter how you order them.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours.

Remove bay leaf before serving. I serve mine with a piece of Italian or Sourdough bread.

Notes:
If you use Vegetable Broth that is not low sodium, reduce the broth to water ratio to 3 cups of each.
Typically there is tomato sauce in lentils, but my husband can’t eat that so I don’t add them. However you can add one 8 oz.  can of tomato sauce to the mix without changing anything else.