Lentil Mushroom Salad with Fresh Parsley

Earthy meets cheesy meets crisp, green parsley leaves.

This is another simple recipe - easy to make and convenient to take in your picnic basket.

While a lot of picnics have pasta salads, I wanted something a bit more nutritious and a bit more complete. Since I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for with a fast online search, I decided to come up with a recipe of my own. If you're curious about the process that went into creating this filling picnic salad, keep reading.

My salad started with lentils - since they are a nutritious food which takes little effort to cook. With their 18 g protein per cup, they are a great starting point for a complete meal. As I wanted to get at least 6 servings, I went with 2 cups of lentils and 6 cups of water - lentils will triple their volume after cooking and require 3 parts of water for every 1 part of dry lentils. Now, not everyone knows this, however lentils are not just rich in protein: They are also rich in starch. That's right, that means that if a meal contains a significant amount of lentils (or any other legume), you do not need to eat rice, potatoes or bread with it.

Because 1 cup of lentils covers the needs of most people for both starch and protein, one only needs vegetables to make a complete meal - a minimum of 2 cups of uncooked vegetables or 1 cup of cooked vegetables to be precise. I went with mushrooms and, since my recipe was going to give 6 cups of lentils, I knew I needed at least 6 x 500 ml raw mushrooms for the entire salad.

I added cheese for a bit of extra taste - I chose it as it's a food that goes well with mushrooms. In the future I would love to try the same recipe with feta cheese - I somehow know it will look and taste amazing.

A simple lemon dressing (1 part lemon juice to 3 parts oil) and some fresh parsley, chopped for added fragrance, and you have a perfect picnic salad. Easy peasy and so yummy!

This recipe is part of the 2020 - Week 29 Menu - Picnic Recipes. Look under Menus for all other recipes of the series or Subscribe to our mailing list and receive complete weekly menu ideas with everything from the grocery shopping list to all standardized recipes in a menu, as well as an organized Order of Cooking list to save you time in the kitchen.

Download the recipe here:

Lentil Mushroom Salad with fresh Parsley

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Enjoy!