A delicious, healthy, spring-inspired Lentil Salad recipe, with vibrant spring veggies, fresh mint and lemony dressing served over optional yogurt sauce. Vegan adaptable, and Gluten-Free!
Spring is in the air! This spring-inspired Lentil Salad is fresh and vibrant and full of flavor! Crunchy radishes, asparagus and snap peas add a nice contrast in texture to the lentils, and the mint just sings of spring. The salad is dressed with a lemony dressing then plated over a creamy yogurt sauce.
Ingredients in Lentil Salad
Lentils – I prefer using small black lentils for this salad, because they cook quickly and are cute- but any whole lentil will work here.
Spring Veggies – just pick a few! Snap peas, snow peas, asparagus, English peas, green beans, radishes or even greens like chard.
Herbs- mint makes this pop, but dill or parsley work great too!
Sumac– use it if you have it; if not, try curry powder, cumin, coriander, or harissa powder.
*See the recipe card for full details
How to make Spring Lentil Salad
Cook the lentils and blanch the the veggies until tender-crisp. Chill.
If using rainbow chard, simply chop and wilt in a pan with a little olive oil, garlic or shallot, salt and pepper.
Leave the radishes raw and crunchy.
Toss it all together with the lemony dressing and the mint.
Make the creamy yogurt sauce and place it on the bottom of the lentil salad as a base. So tasty!
If you rather, you can also plate this over creamy hummus.
This would be terrific with toasty pita bread!
Enjoy this vibrant Lentil Salad and let us know what you think in the comments below!
More lentil salad you may like:
- Lentil Salad with Apples, Walnuts and Celery Root
- Indian Spinach Salad with Lentils & Cauliflower
- Moroccan Lentil Salad
- Beet, Lentil and Spinach Salad with Pomegranate Dressing
- Lentil Tabouli Salad
- Lentil Pomegranate Salad (Palouse Caviar)
xoxo
Lentil Salad with Spring Veggies
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 40
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Salad, Legumes, Gluten-free
- Method: Tossed
- Cuisine: American
Description
A delicious, healthy, Greek inspired lentil salad recipe with spring veggies, lemon and mint served over optional yogurt sauce. Vegan adaptable and Gluten-Free
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked lentils (Black Caviar or French Green are nice- do not use split lentils) about 3/4 cup dry.
- 3 cups spring veggies- your choice of snap peas, English peas, snow peas, green beans, asparagus, radishes or chard
- 3 tablespoons red onion- finely chopped , or sub green onion
- 1 garlic clove, finely minced- use a garlic press
- 1/4 cup chopped mint leaves (2 ounces) or sub dill or italian parsley, but mint is nice. 😉
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 1 teaspoon sumac -optional but yummy!
- salt and pepper to taste
- optional micro greens
Optional Yogurt Sauce: ( Or sub creamy hummus)
Instructions
Cook the lentils in salted water until tender but not falling apart. Drain, rinse with cold water, drain.
Lightly blanch asparagus, snap peas, green beans, or English peas until tender-crisp. Chill.
If adding radishes, you can keep those raw and crunchy. If using chard, finely chop and wilt in a pan with a little olive oil, shallot or garlic, and salt and pepper.
Place the lentils, veggies, onion, garlic and mint in a bowl. Toss with the olive oil, lemon zest and juice from ½ a lemon—season generously with salt, pepper and optional sumac.
Adjust lemon, adding more if you like. If it’s bland, it most likely needs salt.
Make the optional Yogurt Sauce to lather on the bottle of the plate or platter: Whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
Smear the yogurt sauce on a platter (or individual bowls or plates) then top with lentil salad and optional microgreens.
Notes
Lentil salad can be made ahead- leave out mint and microgreens and add them right before serving.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: - served with the Yogurt Sauce
- Calories: 342
- Sugar: 11.5 g
- Sodium: 462.8 mg
- Fat: 10.3 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 47.6 g
- Fiber: 8.6 g
- Protein: 19 g
- Cholesterol: 1.6 mg
To make this dairy free, would a df coconut yogurt work??
I think it would work fine!
Delicious and easy! I’m always looking for vegetarian recipes to prepare ahead of the week for lunch or dinner. This is perfect: tasty, easy to make, quick, and nutritious!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
This was D-licious! The sauce….OMG! The sauce!!! Thank you for sharing your creations 🙏
so good!
This turned out amazing! Loved it.
Hi,
I made this a few days ago, and it was delicious! I could not find sumac at the grocery. I ended up using harissa powder instead, which was tasty. I still want try it with the sumac…
Hi Nicole, thanks so much, Im so glad you liked it and tried without the Sumac!
So glad to find you ! Gorgeous !
So glad you are here! Welcome!