Show Your Lentils Love With An Easy Swap That Makes For Richer Flavor

In today's seemingly endless quest for adding more protein to our diets, lentils are an excellent but often overlooked choice. Perhaps this is because these legumes have a reputation for being bland fare that's considered a consolation prize for vegetarians and vegans. But maybe it's time for that to change. These earthy and budget-friendly protein gems come in a range of colors with varying flavor profiles and intensities, but all get a glow-up when cooked in ghee instead of butter or oil.

Ghee has long been used in Southeast Asian cooking and is a cherished ingredient. It is easiest to think of ghee like clarified butter on steroids, meaning that it benefits from a longer cooking time, until the butter contains very minimal amounts of water and assumes a rich, deep, nutty flavor. You can buy shelf-stable ghee at the grocery store or you can easily make ghee at home with a stand mixer. In addition to giving lentils a rounder, more enticing flavor, ghee has a higher smoke point than butter and even most cooking oils, so using it means you have less chance of burning your lentils.

For rave-worthy lentils, start with ghee in your pan and toast onions and garlic in it to create a hearty foundation to make the lentils sing. Then you can either press the easy button and add canned lentils which are already cooked, or use whole lentils that you simmer with water on the stovetop until cooked through. Just be sure to rinse and sift through dried lentils to avoid the painful experience of biting into debris like tiny pebbles that can be left over from harvesting. 

Another way to incorporate this fat is by heating the spices that you'll add to lentils in ghee, also referred to in Indian cooking as making a tadka, which allows them to release peak levels of aroma and taste. You can also also add a final flourish of ghee at the end of cooking to amplify all of the flavors. Or, garnish with a drizzle of that crafty tadka over the finished dish for an enticing fragrance that is sure to beckon even novice lentil eaters.