Lentil Salad with Beets and Goat Cheese

Earthy lentils and beets meets tangy goat cheese for an easy, hearty salad.

For this recipe you will need a large bowl, a cutting board, a knife, and a fork.

Ingredients:

• Precooked and cooled lentils about 2 cups

• One package of beets

• 4 oz package of goat cheese (plain, honey, or herb)

• 2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

• 2 tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar

• Salt and Pepper to taste

• Optional: basil salt and/or fresh herbs such as thyme, rosemary and basil, and a few pinches crushed red pepper flakes

For ease I opted for precooked lentils from Trader Joes, but you could cook and cool your own green or brown lentils or even used canned lentils. To keep with the theme of ease I also used a package of precooked beets.

Note: They make some Balsamic marinated ones that would be yummy here. My all time favorite beet, that trader joes has pre roasted seasonally, is the golden beet. If you are someone who thinks they do not like beets golden beets might convince you otherwise, but I digress...if you cannot tell I love beets.

1. Start by placing the lentils in the bowl.

2. Next open the beets carefully and place them on the cutting board pouring any residual beet juice over the bowl of lentils

3. Slice or dice your beets and place them in the bowl with the lentils.

4. Open the package of goat cheese and use the fork to crumble the goat cheese into the bowl

   
   

Tip: Goat cheese is a fresh cheese that goes bad fairly quickly. If you get a large log of goat cheese and only use half of it for a recipe place the rest in a bag, Tupperware, or jar and put it in the freezer for another recipe later on. You can also grate frozen goat cheese, and sometimes it is a little less messy.

5. Add a few glugs of olive oil and balsalmic vinegar. You could use white wine or red wine vinegar, but I think balsalmic is clasic.

My grandfather's family was Sisilian, God rest his soul, and he always said that the best balsalmic vinegar could be drunk. That real, Modena balsalmic vinegar was sweet and thick like balsamic glaze we think of here. Just instead of being reduced by heat it was reduced with time. Good things come to those who wait I suppose. I miss my grandfather he passed down recipes to my family and he loved to cook for others. I must have inherited that from him and his daughter, my mother.

6. Add any herbs, salt, pepper, optional crushed red pepper flakes, and give everything a good mix.

7. Serve or place in meal prep containers and finish with optional basil salt

I had so much basil and not enough room in my freezer for anymore pesto, so I made basil salt I think the recipe I followed used 3 cups of basil to 1 cup of salt. I found a recipe that is roughly how I made this.

https://aprettylifeinthesuburbs.com/basil-salt-recipe/