This hearty Vegan Lentil Salad is a nutritional powerhouse packed with French lentils, mushrooms, and lemon. And it comes together fast with just a handful of ingredients which you probably already have in your pantry!
While this may look like a winter dish, the tart brightness and freshness of lemon really brings this mushroom lentil salad into summer.
This vegan lentil salad is healthy, light, easy and perfect to bring along to your next bbq or summer picnic.
Vegan and gluten free, and made from ingredients you are already likely to have in your fridge or pantry it's sure to satisfy everyone!
Tips for Making Vegan Lentil Salad:
Experiment with your favorite mushrooms.
In this salad, I've used a mix of swiss brown (crimini) mushrooms and button mushrooms (champignons). Really though you can use whatever variety of mushrooms you prefer or have on hand.
Meaty portobello mushrooms would also be lovely in this vegan lentil salad, as they have a richer, deeper, almost meaty flavor. King brown mushrooms would be great too, or even a mix of wild mushrooms.
Caramelize the mushrooms over high heat for the best flavor.
The secret to this vegan lentil salad is cooking the mushrooms over a high heat to allow them to caramelize slightly.
The key to lovely caramelized mushrooms is to not add salt to the mushrooms while cooking them!
Adding salt will cause the mushrooms to release water and will prevent them from caramelizing, resulting in flabby watery mushrooms, which is not what you want.
The mushrooms will release a little moisture as you cook them, but much less so than if they were seasoned.
You'll want to cook the mushrooms in batches as well, to make sure they aren't over crowded in the pan. I cooked them in 4 batches to make sure the mushrooms didn't overlap.
Seasoning your vegan lentil salad.
The other key to this mushroom lentil salad is seasoning. A simple salad, such as this, all hangs on the dressing.
Season with a couple of pinches of salt, toss to combine, taste and add more until the flavors really start to come alive.
If serving this salad straight from the fridge you will need a little more seasoning than if you were serving it at room temperature.
Cook the lentils in vegetable stock.
Another tip I like to use is to cook the lentils in vegetable stock, to add a lovely depth of flavor.
If you don't have vegetable stock, water will do, but I do think vegetable stock makes a great addition.
Dress up your vegan lentil salad.
There are plenty of ways to dress up this Mushroom Lentil Salad to make it your own.
If you aren't vegan, add some crumbled feta. Or even better, fry up some haloumi and place it over the top.
If you are vegan, try adding thinly sliced celery or radish or replacing the rocket (arugula) with oven baked kale chips for a little crunch.
A Reader Favorite Recipe!
This recipe first appeared on Delicious Everyday way back in 2013. It's been a reader favorite, which is why I've updated it for 2019. While the recipe remains the same, I've added some tips and tricks. And of course new photos.
Check out the original photo below. Pretty horrible right? I know this recipe isn't the most visually appealing, but I think the new photos do it a little more justice 🙂
And here's what this same vegan lentil salad looks like today. A little better, huh?
If you like this recipe, make sure you check out my new five-minute vegan lentil salad. It's a surefire way to get a tasty dinner on the table quick!
And if you're a big mushroom lover, be sure to check out these recipes:
- Vegan Mushroom Wellington
- Mushroom Bolognese {vegan}
- Mushroom Quinoa Burgers with Roasted Garlic and Thyme Mayonnaise {vegetarian}
- Mushroom Bouguignon {vegan}
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup French Green Lentils
- 2 cups vegetable stock, or water
- 4 cups mix of button and swiss brown mushrooms, sliced (300g or 10 ½ oz)
- 2 teaspoon olive oil
- ½ shallot or small onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- ¼ teaspoon chilli flakes, or more to taste
- 1 ½ tbs lemon juice
- 3 teaspoon good quality extra virgin olive oil
- sea salt and pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoon flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
- ½ cup rocket, (arugula)
Instructions
- Begin by cooking the lentils. Place the lentils and vegetable stock in a saucepan and bring to a boil before reducing to a simmer. Simmer for 25 minutes or until the lentils are tender. Drain and set aside to cool.
- Place a large ]frying pan over a high heat. When the pan has come to heat (don't add oil) add ⅓ of the mushrooms. Leave for 2 minutes before then give the pan a shake to flip them over. The mushrooms should be lightly golden. Cook for a further minute before removing from the pan and repeating with the remaining mushrooms.
- Reduce the heat to medium low and add 2 teaspoon of olive oil or vegan butter and add the shallot or onion. Cook until slightly golden on the edges and return the mushrooms to the pan and add the garlic and chilli flakes and cook for 2 minutes, or until the garlic is fragrant, but not browned as it will taste bitter. Set aside to cool.
- Toss the lentils, mushroom and garlic together along with the lemon juice and the extra virgin olive oil. Season to taste and add the parsley and rocket just as you're serving.
Notes
Nutrition (estimated per serving)
S Knapp says
I was raised a vegetarian by vegetarian parents, so I learned early how to survive in a meat-eating world. My favorite story is when I was driving thru Montana in the late 1990's. We stopped for lunch in Missoula at a Mexican restaurant. I asked them to make my tacos with beans instead of meat. They just looked at me with a confused expression and said they didn't think they could do that. I said, "Do you make refried beans?" "Of course," they replied. "Well, just put refried beans, lettuce, tomato and cheese on the tortilla instead of meat." They were still quite confused. It took a good five minutes of explaining before they could figure out how to make a taco without meat! And I'm sure they thought I was crazy.
Nicole says
That's hilarious! I have many similar memories growing up - so much easier these days!!
Susan says
Very tasty , healthy and easy to make will be a regular in my kitchen 😃
Rachel lewis says
Made this today and it’s now one of my favourite lentil dishes. I served it warm and used a bag of mixed salad leaves of rocket, beetroot & spinach, they wilted nicely. Also grated some lemon zest over the top too. Extremely moorish xx
Nicole says
I'm so glad you liked it - thanks for coming back to tell me!!
Felicia says
Turned out delicious!! Highly recommend!
Shoshana says
This was DELICIOUS, and also super simple to cook (also much faster than it said, as I prepared the mushrooms, shallots etc while the lentils were cooking). Really helpful instructions, thank you. The only thing I might change is adding a little pepper, but otherwise was perfect.
Ann Davis-Rowe says
Granted, I added feta, capers, walnuts, and currants for funsies and our lemon/EVOO was dressing leftover from last night’s salad BUT my carnivorous husband was very happy and looking forward to the leftovers for his lunch tomorrow since arugula holds up so well. What an easy meal using things we usually have on hand. Perfect for subbing in when we’re too tired to cook and could easily cook the mushrooms and lentils for meal prep and then add in arugula the day of. Thank you!
marcy says
I haven't try it yet but it sounds delicious, 2 of my favorite lentils and mushrooms, yummy! thanks for the recipe.