Creamy lentil pasta
By Elly Bolton
Ingredients
Lentil sauce:
Olive oil
4 cloves garlic
Chili flakes (to taste)
Black pepper (to taste)
1 tsp basil
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp oregano
1 ½ tbsp tomato paste
Approx 2 tbsp ketchup (if you have a bottle that’s nearly empty, add a dash of water, give it a shake, and use the contents of this. If you don’t have any ketchup, you can add more tomato paste)
½ can coconut milk
Juice of ½ a lemon
1 tin green lentils (or puy/beluga if you’re feeling fancy. You can also replace with another pulse if you don’t have lentils to hand)
Optional: nutritional yeast
Other ingredients:
Pasta (as much as you want)
Peas, or other vegetables that you want using up
Salt
Optional: fresh basil
Method
Heat up olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat
Chop garlic (any thickness/size between sliced and minced is fine, depending on your preferences)
Once the oil is hot, add the garlic, chilli flakes, and black pepper
Cook the pasta and peas according to the package instructions in a separate saucepan. Salt the water if you’d like
Add the thyme, basil, rosemary, and oregano to the frying pan
Once the garlic has turned slightly golden, add the tomato paste, ketchup, and lemon juice. Stir to distribute the tomato paste evenly. It will hiss, so ensure you have the extractor fan on
Add the coconut milk, and stir it in
Once the sauce starts to simmer, add the lentils
After a few minutes, add nutritional yeast to taste. This will also help to thicken the sauce a little (if you’re not using nutritional yeast, you may have to wait for the sauce to thicken on its own)
Once the pasta and peas have boiled, add a couple of tablespoons of pasta water to the sauce
Drain the pasta and peas, and add to the sauce, so that the sauce is evenly distributed
Plate up, and garnish with fresh basil