If you are looking for one quick and hearty meal With a delicious Middle Eastern twist, you’ve come to the right place. Lebanese Mujadara is a healthy dish full of wonderful flavors that is ready in just 30 minutes. Let us show you how to do it!
Mujadara is a simple dish consisting of lentils and rice cooked in vegetable broth and flavored with earthy spices. Once the rice is soft and fluffy, it’s topped with a generous helping of caramelized onions and served with freshly chopped cilantro and a dollop of yogurt.
Also known as Mujaddara or Mujadarah, Mujadara is a very popular dish in the Middle East where lentils are a staple ingredient in many recipes. In some variations, the cooked lentils and rice are mashed to a pudding-like consistency, but we like our Mujadara Bit with the grains and legumes intact.
We used dried green lentils in our recipe, but you can use canned lentils or other types of lentils like brown or red. As for the rice, we opted for brown rice higher in fibers and less refined than white rice, making it a healthier choice. The classic mujadara spice includes cumin and cinnamon, but we’ve also added ground turmeric, which gives the rice a beautiful color.
What we love most about this recipe are the caramelized onions. They are sweet and soft – a real treat. To prepare them, you need to slowly cook finely chopped onions in a pan for 20-30 minutes, which you can easily do while the rice and lentils are cooking. Just stir them frequently, add a splash of water if needed, and let the natural sugars in the onions slowly caramelize.
A serving of this Lebanese mujadara has only 360 caloriesand yet it offers 30% of your RDI in protein, 35% RDI of fibersAnd only 10% RDI of fats. Enjoy it on its own or with a refreshing tomato, cucumber and mint salad. Oh, don’t forget to top the rice with a nice big spoonful of flavored yogurt for maximum flavor!