On with the veggie fest! This cheesy mushroom lentil cottage pie is an old vegetarian favourite. Easy to make, healthy and tasty.
We aren’t vegetarians, but we do eat a lot of veggie food, both for our budget and our health. More recently, environmentalists have been extolling the virtues of a more plant based diet for the good of the planet, so we are increasing the number of vegetarian and vegan meals in our plan each week.
Lentils are full of protein and fibre, contain essential minerals and are one of your five a day. They also are virtually fat free and cheap to buy.
If you want a lower fat version of this recipe, use a spray such as Frylight instead of the butter and oil, and replace the cheddar with a half fat variety. Leave the butter out of the mashed potato too. A beaten egg added to the mash will give you the richness without the fat (and is an old Slimming World trick)
Ingredients
IngredientsServes 4
1 tbsp veg oil and 1 heaped tsp butter
1 large onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
250g red lentils
250g mushrooms
2 tbsp tomato puree
1.5 pints of veg stock (I used 2 stock cubes but you could make your own)
1 sachet bouquet garni
1tbsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
1 kg potatoes, peeled, cooked and mashed with a little butter and milk
100g grated cheddar
Method
Heat the oil and butter together gently and cook the onion, celery, garlic and mushrooms until soft. Add the lentils, stock and tomato puree with the bouquet garni. Bring to the boil then simmer with the lid on for around 20 minutes, stirring every now and then. Keep an eye on this mixture and add a little more stock if necessary.
When the lentils are soft, remove the bouquet garni sachet and season with salt, pepper and the Worcestershire sauce to taste. Put in a suitable oven proof container and top with the mash, then the cheese. Bake in a preheated oven at gas mark 4, 180 degrees until browned on top.
This cheesy mushroom lentil cottage pie is delicious with some onion gravy and a green vegetable such as broccoli.
You can find more of my favourite frugal recipes here.
Penniless Veggie says
I use whole lentils (green, brown or puy) for veggie cottage pie, they have a really nice texture and because they’re brown (use yeast extract for a dark savoury stock) aren’t so obviously not meat 😉
Julia says
That’s the problem I have. I’m a veggie/pulse loving person surrounded by meat eaters who won’t even entertain a potato if it isn’t in chip/crisps form, let alone any other vegetable. Tonight’s roast dinner is going to be just a few slices of beef and a Yorkshire pudding for more than one of mine! 🙁
ChickenladyJane says
Oh Julia, that’s bad! I have force fed mine vegetables from an early age and they all love them. If I gave them veggies in a cheese sauce they would be happy, it’s just the pulses they are not sure about. They do like chick peas though
Margaret Powling says
The lentil and cheese dish sounds lovely, Jane. I do think people, generally speaking, are too faffy about what they will and won’t eat these days. As my husband (and Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses!) is wont to say, “In the war …” and then he’ll tell me (and anyone else who will listen) that you’d be glad to eat anything as food was scarce. But I can understand families where members such as Julia’s, refuse vegetables. It’s as if vegetables have a bad name when they are so good for us! These people who profess that they don’t like them/won’t eat them … I wonder if they went to a gorgeous Michelin-starred restaurant and were faced with the most wonderful food which consisted mainly of vegetables, but displayed so that they looked wonderfully tempting to eat, would they then refuse them? I think not.
It’s high time that vegetables (although not as high in protein as meat, I do appreciate that) were given equal status with meat, and that vegetarian and vegan food wasn’t considered anything other than simply delicious, nutritious food. I know restaurants and cafes put a ‘v’ next to vegetarian food (and also mention vegan food now) but this again is making it a special case. I would rather have an ‘m’ next to a mead dish and we could then assume that all the other items on the menu were vegetarian/vegan; that would be a turn-around, would it not? I’m joking, of course, because we know that chicken, pork, lamb, beef is meat but it’s sad that these things that we should be eating less of have top billing.
The best way forward, I think, is to make vegetables as tasty and good-looking on the plate as possible and also NOT to say things such as “eat your greens!” or “eat your vegetables!” putting them on a par with things which must be eaten but don’t expect to enjoy them. A great mound of watery cabbage or spinach on the plate looks and tastes revolting, and also, as we grow up, our taste buds accept different tastes that as children we do not like. Make veg look and taste good, use guile (make a nut roast and just say it’s a special roast rather than “nut” roast), and always use the best quality vegetables (not large, old, wooden, cow carrots!) – they needn’t cost a huge amount as they’re not expensive meat – and you’re half-way there. And then, if your family still won’t eat vegetables, make them vegetable soup, blended to smoothness, so it’s just a very tasty drink.
I have to say, though, as both meat and vegetable eaters (although we eat very little meat these days, preferring vegetables) pulses aren’t high on our list of things we enjoy, but they are obviously essential for their protein content. They need really good recipes and, sadly, I’ve found few of those, but I do add lentils to soups, and we eat houmous, too. One of the nicest pulse dishes I ever had was a spicy five-bean hot pot in a pub some years ago, but I’ve not yet quite managed to replicate the recipe (I had to try and work out the spices for myself, it was totally delicious, not hot but tasty and aromatic.)
Apologies, again, for such a long comment, Jane!
Margaret P
Petra says
Love the sound of this meal and cannot wait to make it one weekend!
ratnamurti says
Yummy recipe, Jane. Red split peas are a staple for me, usually as dhal. I keep meaning to cook them really thick so that I can use it as a spread, but always forget! Do you have a nutloaf recipe without tomato? (tomato allergy)
Fiona says
I enjoy looking at your blog, and spotted this recipe, and a number of others, that looked really tasty. I made this one last week. It was indeed tasty, and the melted cheese gave the meal ‘kerb’ appeal. Both my husband and adult grandson, both meat eaters, enjoyed this as much as I did. Thank you.