I’ve been making great little “bento box” lunches lately. It’s worth mentioning that I don’t have a real bento box. It’s a gladware plastic container.
But it serves the same purpose and I’m kind of obsessed with these lunches. The biggest portion is reserved for vegetables – usually grape tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers or green beans; the small portion is for seaweed salad (I know, such a random Costco purchase); and the medium is for a lentil salad. And then I’ll add a chicken sausage or hard-boiled eggs on the side. Sometimes I keep it simple and toss the lentils with green onions, an easy dressing and some quinoa. And sometimes things get a little fancier.
Like beets, goat cheese and shallots fancier. I can’t take the credit for the idea, it came from a cafe near my office (clementine) but it is a delicious mix of slightly sweet + savory. In this particular lentil salad, beets are diced as finely as possible and tossed with lentils, shallots, goat cheese and a mustardy vinaigrette.
Side note: lentils are my favorite bean of all time. Please say you love them as much as I do!
This salad makes the perfect side dish (and could totally work as a main salad too) for lunches or dinners and if you buy pre-cooked lentils and beets, it comes together quickly! Because I tend to make rather involved packed lunches, I usually take any shortcuts I can get. I hope you enjoy this salad as much as we have!
Lentil, Beet & Goat Cheese Salad
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Keywords: salad side gluten-free high fiber high protein kosher vegetarian beans cheese fall
Ingredients (4-6 servings)
- 1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
- salt & pepper
- 16 oz (about 3 cups) cooked lentils
- 8 oz (about 1 1/2 cups) beets, diced as small as possible
- 4 oz goat cheese
- optional: sliced green onion for garnish
Instructions
Soak sliced shallots in cold water for at least 10 minutes. (To make them a little less potent.)
Whisk together apple cider vinegar, olive oil, mustard and salt & pepper. Toss with salad.
Toss together with remaining ingredients.
Top with crumbled goat cheese and garnish with green onion.
Alyssa
I love lentils, but I’ve never made a dish like this before! Clearly, the perfect way to fuel my goat cheese obsession.
Emily
Lentils are a great vehicle for goat cheese! 🙂
Karla @ Foodologie
Yes. Everyone about this. I wish I had it for lunch.
Mercedes
The dressing alone for this salad look so delicious and I’m sure it is so great combined with beets, goat cheese and lentils!
She Rocks Fitness
LOVE this combo! You can never go wrong with any of these ingredients, especially the goat cheese. So simple…thanks for sharing! 🙂
Sarah K. @ The Pajama Chef
what a great little lunch salad! will have to try it out 🙂
erin
This looks SO good! I’m obsessed with beets right now. And, can you believe I haven’t had lentils in YEARS?! Must change that 🙂
Allegra Young
I adore beets, goats cheese, and lentils! I’m sure I’ve eaten them all on a green salad before, but this looks way tastier 🙂
Megan (Braise The Roof)
Gorgeous salad! You buy your prepared beets and lentils at TJ’s, don’t you? 🙂 Love the bento box idea. I need to get on board with that b/c my lunches have been a little sad lately.
Emily
Oh you KNOW it! 🙂
Sam
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Alexandre Raymundo
This really looks amazing, beets are high right now, thanks for sharing it with us!
Marcy
The salad looks amazing, and so easy to put together! Thank you for the recipe (:
Patrick Ross
This looks delicious! Thanks for sharing it with us, keep up the great work with your blog! Cheers!
Elle
This looks great! I love the colour from the beets. I personally really did not like the earthy taste of beets when I first tried it.
However, my friend was adamant that it would eventually grow on me… and guess what? It did!
I like how this is not a light salad. Now that it’s getting colder, I’ve been looking for heavier options and the lentils is a great addition!
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I’m so excited to try it!
Shawn Hunter
Wow, this is a very delicious recipe on beets salad. I really want to try it and incorporate it to my daily diet. The food plating looks fabulous I really interested in reading nutritional blog and Green tea research.