Quick & Easy Vegan Mujaddara

When friends and family tell me how “easy” it’s been for me to go vegan because I love to cook, sometimes I just have to roll my eyes at the naivete of that statement. Yes, I do enjoy cooking and learning about new types of cuisines. Mostly it’s because I’m curious but it’s also because restaurant food is suspect and I’m not wealthy enough to go to the places where the food is always good all the time, and when you factor being vegan into the whole thing, well just finding a place to eat can turn into an ordeal in itself.

So I cook and experiment. And vegan-ize as much as I can or as much as I want.

But the reason I love cooking is because I find plenty of ways to make meals that are delicious and healthy and quick. Every single day can’t be a two hours in the kitchen kind of day, but it can taste like it and that’s where this vegan mujaddara comes in very handy.

Before we go further, I do know that Mujaddara is vegan and that to say so is redundant but many westerners have added meat and/or dairy to this dish so people looking for those recipes, probably won’t click on me.

Now, let’s move on!

This dish is pretty simple as it only contains a few main ingredients: brown lentils, brown rice, caramelized onions & spices.

The only thing I added was a few chopped crimini mushrooms and I used baharat, ras el hanout, cardamom, black pepper and cumin to season everything.

When it comes to a dish like this, you want to flavor the waters as much as you can. The people who know about these things recommend you don’t salt or season water for cooking lentils, but I added salt and baharat during the last 10 minutes and it made a difference. Do the same for your rice water, add some seasoning so that everything has flavor before you blend it all.

Since this dish was so healthy and easy, I used a plant butter-oil hybrid to get the onions crispy and caramel-y and delicious. It was worth the time and effort because the onions are where you can really add depth to mujaddara.

This dish was light and healthy and satisfying that we ate the rest the next day for lunch…with a beer!