This lentil potato stew is another recipe that’s a great staple pantry meal using what you likely have on hand. With just a handful of ingredients plus spices, it’s a truly excellent classic dish.
The basics are made a bit more interesting here with rosemary, thyme, and Dijon mustard adding loads of flavour for a surprisingly complex vegan meal. This is winter comfort food all the way.
It’s sort of a cross between a soup and stew, really. That being said, the leftovers from this are fantastic and it will thicken up significantly by day two. This was inspired by a blog favourite, this red lentil and carrot soup, and my oma’s lentil potato soup.
Need some more soup and stew inspiration? Check out this collection of cozy cold weather soup recipes!
Scroll to the bottom of the post or click “skip to recipe” above to see the recipe card with full ingredient measurements and instructions.
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- Onion
- Potatoes
- Carrot(s)
- Garlic
- Rosemary
- Sea salt
- Black pepper
- Sweet paprika
- Cayenne pepper (optional, see notes)
- Apple cider vinegar
- Vegetable broth
- Brown lentils (or black or green, see substitutions)
- Coconut sugar or honey (see notes)
- Dijon mustard
- Thyme
- Spinach, rucola, or other hardy greens (see substitutions)
Tips and Notes
You might be wondering about the honey (or coconut sugar, if vegan) listed in the recipe. This isn’t to sweeten the stew, but rather to round out the flavours. It’s fairly typical in (good) vegan recipes to ensure that there’s a proper depth of flavour in the dish and I don’t encourage leaving it out.
If you have cooked lentils on hand, you can use them instead of dried if you have to use them up. Dried lentils are preferable because they’re being cooked alongside everything else and pick up plenty of seasoning from the broth. To use cooked, reduce the amount of broth by a cup.
In the pictures I peeled the potatoes because they were a little green. I wouldn’t peel them otherwise, because the most nutritious part is the skin. Try to use organic if you can as potatoes are one of the most heavily sprayed crops in conventional agriculture but the skin is excellent.
Rosemary and thyme flavour the stew. Both are good go-to herbs just about year round depending on where you live as 1. they probably over-winter, and 2. unlike basil, both are excellent options dried.
Mustard is key. It’s a tiny amount, just half a teaspoon, but is very important in this recipe.
Substitutions
You can leave the herbs out if you don’t have any or don’t want to buy a whole bundle for such a small amount. I have made it without herbs when I haven’t wanted to go out in the rain to cut any, but they really do improve the dish and I don’t really recommend ditching them.
Alternatively, try subbing in a tablespoon of herbes de Provence – the recipe includes a note on how to use it instead of fresh herbs. Here are some good substitutes for thyme.
I have had some comments that this recipe is too spicy despite just a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper for flavour. If you have a hard time with any spiciness, you can leave it out or just add a tiny pinch. Make sure you’re not using hot paprika.
An earlier iteration used water interchangeably with stock and let me tell you that there were some very grumpy readers. I use water all the time and just up the salt a bit to make up for it (if you’re using store-bought stock, it’s really just salt anyway). So if you don’t have vegetable broth please feel free to use water and then season to taste.
If you’re not too keen on eating so many potatoes, you can switch the carrot/potato amounts and use more carrots and less potatoes.
More Lentil Recipes
Roasted Carrot Salad with Lentils
Lentil Rice Soup with Butternut Squash
Curried Potato Salad
Lentil Bolognese
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Lentil and Potato Stew
Description
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 small onion chopped
- 500 grams potatoes cut into 2cm pieces
- 250 grams carrots cut into 1 cm slices
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon rosemary leaves finely chopped*
- 1 teaspoon sea salt to taste
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 750 ml vegetable stock
- 150 grams brown lentils soaked if possible**
- 1 teaspoon coconut sugar or honey***
- ½ teaspoon dijon mustard
- 3 tablespoons thyme finely chopped
- 70 grams rucola arugula or other greens****
Instructions
- In a large pot, heat the oil over medium. Add the onion and sauté for a couple of minutes or until softened and fragrant. Stir in the potatoes and carrots and cook for another five minutes, stirring occasionally, to brown slightly.
- Add the garlic and rosemary, cook for an additional minute, then add the spices and stir for about 30 seconds. Pour the apple cider vinegar into the pot and stir, then the stock.
- Increase the heat to high and bring the stew to a rolling boil. Add the lentils and reduce the heat to medium-low, then simmer for 25-30 minutes, or until the carrots and potatoes are tender.
- Take the pot off the heat and stir in the coconut sugar, mustard, thyme, and greens. Serve hot and keep leftovers in the fridge for up to 3 days. The stew will thicken slightly as it sits.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.
This post was originally published in October 2017. It has been last updated with improvements to the text and recipe as of October 2020.
Hi, this looks scrumptious!
Can l use split lentils, or must they be whole? Thanks
Hi Estelle! You can use split lentils (I’m guessing you mean red ones?) but they’ll thicken the stew further and change the texture a bit. It’ll still taste good though!
I loved this recipe without the Dijon mustard, honey, and thyme. It tasted perfect before I added that in there!
Hi, Alexandra.
Can you substitute red lentils for the brown lentils in this recipe? Thanks!
You definitely can, but the texture will be a bit different – thicker and a bit heavier. It’ll still taste good!
Very nice stew. Maybe I have a more mature palate, but I didn’t add a sweetener and I thought it was delicious all the same. Also in the future I would recommend putting the recipe at the top of the page; having to scroll down through your narrative to get to the facts is quite frustrating for the reader.
Hi Dan, glad you like the recipe. To clarify, the honey isn’t there to actually sweeten the recipe, but to make the flavour more complex and add roundness. If you prefer to go right to the recipe, there is a handy “Skip to Recipe” button right at the top of the post, before anything else – you’ll find this on almost every recipe site you visit.
Hi,
I was wondering if I can substitute the honey/ coconut sugar with maple syrup instead?
Definitely, no problem.
You can just tap the Jump To Recipe tab at top of post.
Perfect meal
I forwarded the recipe to my daughter as she has just moved out of the family home for the first time in our lives. A good healthy, versatile and budget wise dish. However, me being the meat eater of the house hold I garnished my serving with a good serving of sliced smoked duck breast thrown on top.
Yum yum yum.
This was excellent. Perhaps the best vegan stew I’ve made. I did make some minor changes, but mostly stuck to the recipe and it turned out amazing. We definitely feel this has a place in our kitchen! Thanks so much!
I made this soup for tonight’s dinner and it was delicious! I love that it only requires simple ingredients that I am always likely to have at home. It will be on the regular rotation of our recipe list : )
This looks delicious but it isn’t completely vegan if it has honey in it.
I’m sure a vegan person would choose to sweeten with the coconut sugar : )
This was fantastic! The flavor of the apple cider vinegar really came through in the best way. I used spinach because that’s what I had on hand. Really, really good.
I just made this and it’s super delicious, in addition to being really easy and quick to make. Wonderful recipe! Thank you.
Alexandra, I came to your page via Vanilla and Bean, and I am glad I did. I’m not vegan or vegetarian, but I’ve already made your lentil and potato stew…twice! It is a lovely recipe, and quite delicious. Thank you for the easy to follow recipe.
I’m looking forward to making more of your savory dishes.
Thanks so much Brigitte, I’m so happy to have you here!
Could I use cooked lentils and add to the stew at the end?
Hi Anisa, you certainly could, but I would recommend reducing the amount of liquid by about a cup.
Oh that's awesome, Meg, especially knowing that your kids like it! You're so welcome, and thanks for letting me know that it went well 🙂
I made your stew tonight and it was absolutely delicious. Even my kids loved it. The smell of the coconut oil was amazing. Thank you for sharing.
So happy to hear that, thanks for sharing!
I made this recipe for dinner yesterday. It tasted so good!
This is EXACTLY what I need this week! It's freezing cold here in Calgary, we just got our first huge snowfall and I have such a busy week ahead. I'm headed out to grab the ingredients tomorrow and I pinned the recipe. Thanks for another beautiful dish!
I really love the look of this soup. I love lentil soup and Have been making lots of them, too and yours with potatoes is one that I need to try! Glad you're feeling better!
I had lentil soup 3 times this week, and I'm still salivating looking at yours. haha It's just so good, and I love potatoes too, so this is a great combo. Too funny about your grandma… Good thing she doesn't speak English! 😉
I like how chunky this soup is! Those chunks of potatoes, and the greens, just add character to it. Lentils are amazing, and we often incorporate them in our meals. Sorry to hear you were not feeling well, also here flu season is in full bloom. Soups like this one, are a great help!