Beluga Lentil Salad with Rainbow Chard & Garlic Scapes
Hot or cold, this salad makes the most of some of late spring's best ingredients: rainbow chard and garlic scapes!
Ingredients
- 1-2 garlic scapes, chopped
- 1 shallot, chopped
- juice and zest of one lemon
- 1 large bunch rainbow chard (greens and stems), chopped
- 1/2 tablespoon nonpareil capers
- 8 oz cooked Beluga black lentils*
- 3-4 oz crumbled feta
- freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Heat some oil in a large skillet. Saute the garlic scapes and shallot until the shallot is translucent.
- Add the lemon juice and zest, the chard, the capers, pepper and the lentils. Saute 2-3 minutes then cover and cook for 5 or until the chard is softened. Saute another 2-5 minutes or until the stalks reach your desired temperature and stir in the feta.
- Serve immediately or cool to room temp and serve. Refrigerate leftovers.
Notes
*I like to buy the par-cooked vacuum sealed ones at Target. Ignore the instructions on the packaging and follow what I tell you to do above. You can also make your own from dried.
If you don't have a lemon, use a splash of white wine vinegar
My thoughts:
It’s been getting hot and humid here in Baltimore. That tends to zap any real interest I have in cooking anyway but when I made this we are on day 90 of being home thanks to the pandemic. In those three months, I’ve only been to the store three times and nowhere else. We’ve made every single thing we’ve eaten except for one sandwich my husband picked up while getting groceries at the local Italian market (We’ve been doing one Aldi trip and one trip to another store to fill in every 3-4 weeks) and steamed crabs from the seafood market on his birthday. So much cooking!
I haven’t been to Target since February but luckily at some point I stocked up on these little par-cooked packets of black lentils, farro and wild rice they sell. I don’t know why they are the only place I can find them but they are great! I don’t microwave them, I just add them into soup or dishes like this and let them cook around 90 seconds and they are totally cooked and ready to serve. I love not having to boil lentils in our non-centrally air-conditioned home.
I always use the stems in dishes using chard but I’m not sure how common that is. They do take a little while to cook if they are a little fibrous (if yours are, feel free to add just the stalks at the beginning when you saute the scapes and the shallot but they add a lot of flavor and bulk to the dish and as a bonus, cuts down on waste.
This dish is really fresh tasting thanks to the seasonal garlic scapes (yay, produce delivery!) and tons of lemon juice and chard. I think it would be a good main dish if you topped it with a fried egg but I had it as a side dish so I could have the other half as a side dish for a meal the next day. I’m really trying to stretch out our groceries and give myself a break from cooking everything 100% from scratch every day. I’ve been documenting what we’ve been eating over here, mainly for my own amusement but feel free to check it out. The lentils add a lot of body to the dish and make it much more filling.
