For eating vegetarian at home, we don’t have lentils as often as we should. Now that I’ve made this warm lentil salad for the first time and realized how easy it was, maybe we’ll have lentils more often.

The puy lentils (I like these because they don’t break down as much when they’re cooked) were boiled in some water with a quarter of an onion, a carrot, and bay leaf. Those additions to the water flavor the lentils.

While the lentils were cooking, I chopped some yukon gold potatoes into bite-sized pieces and then boiled them in salted water until they were done.  I fished the potatoes out of the water and set them aside in a strainer to cool. With the remaining boiling water, I blanched a bunch of kale and then rinse in cold water.  I then chopped the kale up roughly.

When the lentils are cooked to a point where they’re soft enough to eat, but not so soft they fall apart, I drained them, and mixed them in with the potatoes and kale.  The carrot that I had boiling with the lentils was chopped into a fine dice and also added to the salad.

I made a dressing of grainy mustard, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a splash of white wine vinegar.  I poured that over the warm potato and lentil salad and tossed to coat.  Finally, I rinsed some cold lettuce we had in the fridge, tore it into pieces, and mixed it in with the warm salad.

This lentil and potato salad may sound like it has a lot of steps, but they’re all very simple and it’s easy to make a big batch at a time.  It’s also one of those things that gets better if it sits for a little bit before eating so that the flavors can meld together.

If you’re feeling extra fancy and have leftover risotto lying around, you can shape those into small balls with some lentil, bread them in panko, and fry them into arancini to top off the salad like so: