Mujadarah: Vegetarian Comfort Food From the Middle East

Mujadarrah is an easy to make Middle Eastern comfort food made from rice and lentils. As I'm sure my readers have come to expect with all the recipes here at Casual Kitchen, it's both laughably cheap and laughably easy, and it offers plenty of modification opportunities--particularly with the spices, which can easily be modified to match your personal preferences.

There's just nothing better than a meal of simple, inexpensive comfort food, especially when you can make it in under 30 minutes. Enjoy!
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Mujadarrah

Ingredients:
olive oil
2 onions, sliced into rings
1 cup red lentils
1 cup rice
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups hot vegetable broth or water, in all

Directions:
1) In a large non stick skillet, add ~1 Tablespoon olive oil and the sliced onion rings and saute on medium/medium-low heat until very well browned and soft, about 10-15 minutes.

2) Meanwhile, in another large non-stick skillet, heat ~2-3 Tablespoons olive oil on medium heat. Add rice, lentils and spices, and stir well for 1-2 minutes until coated with oil.

3) Then, add 3 cups of the hot broth or water (reserving 1 cup for later). Raise heat until water boils, then reduce heat back to medium/medium-low and gently simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the remaining reserved cup of water at about the 10 minute mark. Note: if the rice/lentil mixture seems to be drying out or sticking too much toward the end of the full 20 minutes, add slightly more water.

4) Top the rice/lentil mixture with browned onions and serve immediately.

Serves 4.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Readers are likely to do a double-take when they read the instructions to brown the onions for 10-15 minutes. That's not a misprint! That extra cooking time helps give the onions a sweet and complex flavor, and it adds immeasurably to the taste and quality of this recipe. Note that this step doesn't actually take up any incremental time, because you can cook the onions at the same time the lentils are cooking.

2) There are lots of variations you can consider for spices, and I always like to encourage my readers to try their own ideas for modifications. Here are a few possibilities to consider:

Spicy seasoning version:
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more, to taste)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Garden seasoning version (Inspired by The Kitchen Mouse):
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Garlic lover's special:
1 teaspoon black pepper
4-5 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 teaspoon salt

Readers: what additional variations or modifications would you suggest?

3) Note that most mujadarrah recipes call for regular lentils, which take an additional 20-25 minutes to cook. I use red lentils in this version for speed and convenience.

4) A few words about cost: today's recipe costs about $2.00 in total, or a preposterously cheap cost of about 50c per serving. Oddly enough, I still have readers who regularly try to convince me that eating healthy is too expensive. I just don't understand why anyone would hold such a limiting belief about food when there are so many recipes like this one out there to try!

Related Posts:
Fattoush! A Middle Eastern Salad Recipe
Shrimp in Tomato Sauce: Middle Eastern Cuisine
Quite Possibly the Easiest Lentil Soup Recipe You’ll Find Anywhere
How to Modify a Recipe: The Six Rules

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