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Created On: | By Debbie | 30 Comments
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Lurking in the earliest archives of my blog, there used to be a lentil meatball recipe. However, I was so embarrassed by the photos, I have since deleted it. (Although, I have used one of the photos for a “what not to do” slide for a couple talks I’ve given on food photography! Lol.) Since that recipe was no longer living on the blog, it was about time I posted a new and very much improved lentil meatball one!
Since I already have a tasty Italian flavored vegetarian white bean meatball recipe, I wanted to create a “meat”ball that could could go well with a variety of different sauces. These lentil meatballs do just that! I’ve made them a couple of times and served them up with pasta sauce, this curry yogurt sauce, and now the yummy curry sauce I shared below.
Since it is just Will and I, we had plenty of leftoversfrom this recipe so I packed it up in my lunchbox for work the rest of the week.
Is Curry Paste Vegan?
To make sure this dish is vegan, just double check the curry paste as some contain fish sauce. You should be able to find the curry paste in the Asian section of most major grocery stores.We keep a couple of cans of coconut milk and curry paste in our pantry so we can easily make dishes like this one whenever the craving hits!
Tips for Making The Lentil “Meat”balls
Making the lentil meatballs can be a little tricky if you have never made vegetarian meatballs before. Here are some of my favorite tips for success when making lentil meatballs.
- Don’t overcook your lentils. After simmering your lentils for 12 minutes, I would try a couple. If they are still a little too tough, let them simmer a couple more minutes. You want the lentils to be chewy, not falling apart.
- Don’t over-process your lentils. As you can see in the video, you only want to pulse the lentils maybe 10-12 times just until it starts to clump together into a dough. The mixture should still have whole lentils visible. (You don’t want to make lentil hummus!) I would check after every 2 pulses and stop when you are able to form a ball with the mixture.
- The lentil dough will be kind of like a crumbly cookie batter. Give it a bit of a squeeze in your hand before shaping into a ball. You won’t be able to roll it between your hands, you just want to gently squeeze it into a ball shape. (See video for how I do it!)
- Be gentle when adding the lentil meatballs to the sauce in the end so that they don’t just all fall apart! However, if you did the earlier steps right, they should have some structure so they aren’t falling apart right away.
How to Serve These Lentil Meatballs with Curry Sauce
I like to dish it up over some cooked brown rice (or cauliflower rice if that’s your thing) and then top it with some chopped cashews and fresh cilantro. Serve with a lime wedge on the side and squeeze it on just before eating.
Looking for more vegan recipes? These are some of my favorites!
- Healthy one pot cauliflower curry
- Vegan tempeh lettuce cups
- Vegan loaded sweet potatoes
Lentil Meatballs with Curry Sauce
Created by: Deborah Murphy
Course Entree
Cuisine Indian-Inspired, Vegan
Prep Time 10 minutes minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes minutes
Total Time 55 minutes minutes
5
Who needs take-out when you can make these delicious vegan lentil meatballs with curry sauce served over brown rice and topped with chopped cashews?
Ingredients
For the Lentils
- 1 cup dried small brown lentils
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 onion, chopped (~1 cup)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 cup red wine
- 1 tablespoon reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
For the Curry Sauce
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/3 cup chopped onion
- 6-7 baby bell peppers, chopped (~1 cup)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons red curry paste (double check it is vegan)
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger root
- 1/2 tablespoon reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1 15 oz. can coconut milk (full fat OR lite are fine)
- 1/2 5 oz bag spinach
Instructions
Make the Lentil Meatballs
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rinse the dried lentils in a colander under cold running water. Transfer to a medium saucepan and add the broth. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cook uncovered for 10-15 minutes or until lentils are tender, but not mushy. (They should still have a little bit of a bite to them and hold their shape). Drain any additional cooking liquid. Set aside to cool. You should have about 2 cups of cooked lentils.
In a saucepan, add the oil and onion. Cook for 2-3 minutes until onion is translucent. Stir in the garlic, red wine, soy sauce, tomato paste, oregano, and rosemary. Sauté until liquid from wine has cooked off.
Add the lentils, sautéed onion mixture, nutritional yeast, and breadcrumbs to the food processor. Pulse until lentils form a chunky dough that can be formed into balls. Too mushy? Add more breadcrumbs, 1 tablespoon at a time. Make sure you don’t over-process the lentils or you will have trouble shaping it.
Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray or line it with parchment paper. Form 15 two inch balls with the lentil dough. Arrange in a single layer on your baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Make the Sauce
To make the curry sauce, add the oil, onion, and peppers to a skillet. Saute for 3-4 minutes until onion and peppers are tender. Add the garlic, curry paste, ginger, soy sauce, and coconut milk. Stir well to combine.
Bring to a simmer and then stir in the spinach and cook for 1-2 minutes until spinach is wilted.
Combine
Add the meatballs and gently stir to coat is sauce. Cook for another 1-2 minutes until meatballs and sauce are heated through.
Serve over cooked brown rice and top with chopped cilantro and chopped cashews.
Video
Notes
Nutrition facts below based on full fat coconut milk. Total fat and kcals will be reduced if using lite canned coconut milk.
Nutrition
Serving: 1/5 Recipe | Calories: 439kcal | Carbohydrates: 45g | Protein: 15g | Fat: 24g | Saturated Fat: 17g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g | Sodium: 524mg | Fiber: 8g | Sugar: 3g
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Reader Interactions
Cori Wheaton says
This was really delicious! I baked the lentil meatballs for 15 minutes and then air fried them for another 10 minutes to get them pretty crispy. They were so tasty!Reply
- Deborah Murphy MS, RDN says
I like the idea of air frying them for a little bit. I’ll have to try that!
Reply
- Amy says
My family loves this recipe. So flavorful. Thank you!!Reply
- Janet says
I have been vegan for about 5 months and I have tried at least one new recipe a week since that time. Hands down this is the best. Unfortunately my meatballs fell apart, so I just mixed the crumbled lentil balls into the sauce. While it didn’t look pretty, it tasted out of this world. Like others, I will double the sauce next time. I am also thinking other dishes that I can use the sauce with. I’m going to keep trying to get my lentil balls to form, because this is defiantly something I would serve to company. Thanks so much for sharing an awesome recipe.Reply
- Katie M says
Can you freeze these “meatballs’?
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- Dietitian Debbie says
Yes! They do freeze well.
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- Jessica says
Hello, I’m planning on making this dish tonight and I have a couple of questions. Could I also use mushrooms in addition to the breadcrumbs and nutritional yeast for a flavor additive? And I don’t have curry paste, but I do have curry powder on hand. How could I transform the curry powder into a paste?
Reply
- Dietitian Debbie says
Hi Jessica,
Yes, you can definitely add some mushrooms to the recipe! You might just want to add a tablespoon or two of extra breadcrumbs if you find that the meatball mixture is too wet since the mushrooms may add some extra water to the mix. You can also use curry powder instead of curry paste if you’d like. It will taste a bit different than the original recipe, but should work. I would use maybe 1/2 tablespoon curry powder and adjust according to taste. No need to make it into a paste, just add it in!Reply
- Merrymepenelope says
We just made this recipe for dinner and wow! It’s a good one! I used Bragg’s aminos instead of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons ground oats instead of breadcrumbs and served it over millet to make the whole thing soy and gluten free. Like the others, I wish I’d made a double batch of sauce because that sauce is delicious!!! Thank you so much!See AlsoFrambozen havermout crumbleReply
- Dietitian Debbie says
So glad to hear you enjoyed it! Love the idea of serving over millet. Yum!!!
Reply
- Lois says
Made this recipe several times now – always successful. Love it. Best veggie ‘meatball’ recipe I have come across.Reply
- Dietitian Debbie says
That makes me so happy to hear. 🙂 So glad you like it Lois!
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- Sophie says
Would I be able to use red lentils?
Reply
- Dietitian Debbie says
Hi Sophie,
I wouldn’t recommend red lentils because they don’t hold up well enough for meatballs. Brown or green lentils work best.Reply
- Kay says
I just wanted to say that I cooked this recipe following your direction and they worked perfectly, just like the photo. I didn’t have to add any additional breadcrumbs, and they are delicious with a great texture. They looked so good I sent a photo to my mom along with the recipe. Will be making these again and would definitely serve to company. Thanks!
Reply
- Dietitian Debbie says
Yay! So glad to hear that!
Reply
- Lori says
I followed the recipe exactly and my “meatballs” are mush. Seems this is fairly common among the people who have attempted this.
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- Dietitian Debbie says
I’m sorry to hear that Lori. I’ve had success making this recipe at home, but will test again to see if there is anything I can clarify in the directions.
Reply
- JHughes says
This was really tasty. I doubled the sauce and was glad I did.
My lentils were super watery, so I tried to cook them down and ended up cooking them in a mini muffin tray to have some sort of shape and that worked. Next time I’ll be more careful cooking them!Reply
- Cristina says
Do you add any salt to the recipe?
Reply
- Dietitian Debbie says
Hi Cristina,
I thought the soy sauce and curry paste added enough saltiness to the recipe that I didn’t need to add any table salt. However, feel free to use a little if you feel it needs it!Reply
- Megan R Cunningham says
Sauce is phenomenal! I might go buy a second batch of ingredients and make more of it :). I didn’t have baby bell peppers so I used 2 regular bell peppers instead. The one downside was that my lentil meatballs were more of a lentil patty. I think i over cooked the lentils making it hard to strain the excess water without losing the lentils. I added extra bread crumbs to try to bind them better but was only sorta successful. They still had great flavor and I loved the wine flavor. Overall amazing! Even my cousin who doesn’t usually eat my vegetarian dishes loved it.Reply
- Dietitian Debbie says
Yay!! So glad to hear you (and your cousin) liked it! You definitely have to be careful not to overcook the lentils (I tend to err on the side of undercooked for this recipe), but I’ve totally had the same problem if I’m not watching over the lentils as they cook. I think when they are cooked too tender, it gets harder to form them into meatballs since they soak up so much water. Glad you were still able to make them work as a patty. 🙂
Reply
- Maureen says
What is the final cooked volume of lentils? I cooked my lentils in my InstantPot to try to speed things up and I think I ended up with way too much liquid as it was too wet to form into balls. We made patties instead which were still very flavorful, but I’m wondering if you can provide the measurement of the cooked lentils to use in the recipe? Sauce was delish!
Reply
- Dietitian Debbie says
Hi Maureen!
So glad you were still able to make the recipe work. (And it tasted good still so that’s what counts!) The 1 cup of dried lentils called for in the recipe should make about 2 1/2 cups of cooked lentils. Sometimes I also end up with a little extra liquid after cooking the lentils so I just drain that with a strainer before making the “meatballs” since you want to get rid of as much extra liquid as you can. Hope that helps!! 🙂Reply
- Jessie says
Hello! Can we use lentils in a can instead? Thank you!
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- Dietitian Debbie says
Yes! You’ll just want to drain them before using. 🙂
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- Sheetal Paulson says
Do you have the nutritional value and serving size for this recipe? Looks delicious!
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- Dietitian Debbie says
Added above! 🙂
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- Joani says
Made this yesterday. It was wonderful but personally I will double the sauce ext time. Thanks so much.
Reply
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