A mix of red and brown or French lentils helps thicken the stew without adding flour or arrowroot powder. It’s OK to use all brown or French lentils if you don’t have red, but using all red lentils will yield a mushy mess! Chop all the veggies into roughly 1-inch pieces.
Recipe excerpted from The No Meat Athlete Cookbook: Whole Food, Plant-Based Recipes to Fuel Your Workouts and the Rest of Your Life, by Matt Frazier and Stepfanie Romine.
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
10 oz fresh cremini or white button mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
2 celery ribs, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 sprig rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp black pepper, plus more to taste
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 cup dry red wine
4 waxy potatoes, like Yukon Gold, peeled and chopped
3 beets, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 cups water
1 cup mixed lentils, soaked overnight, drained, and rinsed
1 oz dried mushrooms, broken into pieces
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp red miso paste
Salt
Directions
Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onion and cook until it starts to soften and become fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add mushrooms, celery, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and ½ tsp black pepper. Cook until mushrooms are dark and vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes.
Add tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until it darkens in color, about 2 minutes. Add red wine and scrape bottom of pan to remove any cooked-on bits. Add potatoes, beets, carrots, water, lentils, dried mushrooms, and bay leaves.
Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil; as soon as it starts to boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Cook until vegetables are as tender as you desire and lentils are cooked, about 30 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Whisk in miso paste and season with salt and pepper to taste.
