Mujadara with Lemon-Tahini Carrot & Herb Salad and Warm Pita
660 cal · 23g protein · 92g carbs · 19g fat
Toddler tip: This is a soft, mild, carb-heavy bowl — usually an easy sell. Give her the lentils and rice with a few crispy onions on top and a torn piece of warm pita to dip.
Low-carb fork: Serve a smaller scoop of the lentil-rice and double the carrot-herb salad, or skip the rice portion and eat the lentils and onions over the salad with tahini.
Ingredients
Crispy Onions
- 3 largeyellow onions, halved and sliced thin
- ⅓ cupolive oil
- to tastekosher salt
Lentils & Rice
- 1 cupbrown or green lentils, rinsed and picked over
- 1 cuplong-grain white rice, rinsed
- 1 (15 oz) canchickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1.5 tspground cumin
- ½ tspground coriander
- ¼ tspground allspice
- to tastekosher salt and black pepper
- 1¾ cupsvegetable broth (make it from VEGETABLE bouillon — chicken bouillon would break the vegan night)
Lemon-Tahini Carrot & Herb Salad
- 4 mediumcarrots, peeled into ribbons or coarsely grated
- 1 cupflat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
- ½ cupmint leaves, torn
- 3 tbsptahini
- 2 tbsplemon juice (about 1 lemon)
- ¼ tspground cumin (from the jar above)
- 2–3 tbspwarm water, to thin
- 1 clovegarlic, grated
- to tastekosher salt
For Serving
- 4–6 roundspita bread (check the label for milk, whey, or honey — most plain pita is vegan, but not all)
Instructions
1Make the crispy topping onions FIRST. Heat the olive oil in a wide heavy pot over medium-high. Add about half the sliced onions with a big pinch of salt and fry 12–15 minutes, stirring often, until they are deep brown and the edges are genuinely crisp — they should sizzle hard the entire time. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto a paper-towel-lined plate, spread them in a single layer, and salt them again while they're hot; they crisp further as they cool.
2Drop the heat to medium and add the remaining onions to the same oil with another pinch of salt. Cook 20–25 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until they collapse into something sweet and jammy. These are the flavor base and they stay in the pot. (Onions sweated slowly like this never crisp as they cool — that is exactly why the topping batch is fried hard and separately.)
3Meanwhile, put the rinsed lentils in a separate saucepan, cover with 3 inches of water, and simmer 12–15 minutes until just tender but not falling apart. Drain.
4Add the cumin, coriander, and allspice to the onions left in the pot and stir 30 seconds until fragrant — blooming them in the onion oil is worth more than any amount of extra spice. Add the drained lentils, the rinsed rice, 1¾ cups broth, and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to the lowest heat for 18 minutes. (1 cup of rice needs only about 1¾ cups of liquid — the lentils are already cooked and absorb almost nothing, so more liquid than this turns the pot into porridge.)
5While the lentils and rice cook, make the salad: whisk the tahini, lemon juice, grated garlic, ¼ teaspoon of the cumin, and salt together — it will seize up and look thick and broken, which is normal — then whisk in the warm water a tablespoon at a time until it loosens into a pourable dressing. Toss with the carrot ribbons, parsley, and mint just before serving so the herbs stay bright.
6Near the end of the simmer, warm the pita — wrap the stack in foil and put it in a 350°F oven for 8 minutes, or heat each round 30 seconds per side in a dry skillet. Keep them wrapped in a towel so they stay soft.
7Turn off the heat, stir in the drained chickpeas, and let the pot sit covered 10 minutes, then fluff with a fork. Pile into bowls, top with a generous handful of the crispy onions, and serve with the carrot-herb salad and warm pita.