Lentil and Sausage Stew

We tried a new recipe this week that we really loved: lentil and sausage stew, adapted from this recipe on Budget Bytes (one of my favorite blogs to read). It combines a lot of ingredients we like - Italian sausage, lentils and chard - and is so comforting on cold nights.

Ingredients:

I didn't make that many changes to the recipe, other than substituting a bag of fresh kaleidoscope chard (I said I loved that stuff and I meant it) for the frozen spinach. I ended up using sweet Italian pork sausage instead of turkey or chicken (my usual preference) since that was all they had at Trader Joe's that day, but I think any Italian sausage works just fine. I love Italian sausage.

- 1 lb sweet Italian sausage ($4.07)

- 1 medium onion ($0.50)

- 3 carrots ($0.57)

- 1/2 bunch of celery ($0.80)

- 3 cloves of garlic ($0.10)

- 1 lb brown lentils ($1)

- 2 tbsp chicken bouillon ($0.60)

- 6 cups water ($0)

- 1 tsp cayenne ($0.05)

- 1 tsp paprika ($0.05)

- 1 tsp cumin ($0.05)

- 1 tsp oregano ($0.05)

- 10 oz of kaleidoscope chard ($1.99)

This recipe cost close to $10 for me, even though almost everything was from Trader Joe's or Costco. Groceries are always more expensive in our part of the country. But I still consider this to be a really affordable recipe as it made at least 5 meals (for one).

Process:

Making the stew was really simple. It took some time for prep and also for the lentils to cook, but the basic steps are: brown the sausages, add the mirepoix and garlic, add the lentils + water + bouillon + spices, cook covered on low for 30 minutes once simmering, add chard and cook for 15 more minutes. 

I pretty much followed the recipe as written (substituting the chard for the spinach at the same point in the recipe) so for detailed step by step instructions, that would be the best place to go. I did add some extra water during the chard step, but I think that's covered in the recipe too.

Review:

We really enjoyed this stew. I think we liked it even better than the curried lentil and chard stew we made earlier this year. The key is really the Italian sausage. It infuses the stew with so much flavor. I also liked the brown lentils here, as they retain their shape more than red lentils do, which adds so much more texture to the stew. This is definitely going into the permanent rotation as we really loved it.