This easy one pot Mujadara is a twist on a popular Middle Eastern comfort food where warmly spiced lentils and rice are the base and deeply caramelized onions are the star. Recipes for Mujadara often use three different pots for caramelizing the onions, cooking the lentils, and cooking the rice. Here, we’re doing everything in one pot. It’s incredibly inexpensive to make, super nutritious and healthy, high protein and high fiber, and absurdly delicious. It also happens to be completely vegan/plant-based, if that’s your thing!
In my research for this recipe, I found most Mujadara recipes not only use three separate pots, but also use white rice. I love white rice, but here I’ve opted for brown rice. This not only adds nutrition and fiber, but it cooks in the same amount of time as the soaked lentils. Which makes the Mujadara easy to cook in one pot with less hands-on time. The nutty, earthy flavor of brown rice works really well here.
The caramelized onions are a must here, so be sure to plan ahead. It will take about 40 minutes to caramelize the onions properly, but it’s worth it and pretty hands-off.