Fighting Food Waste : Turning My Leftovers into Chicken Lentil Stew

Lentils, pasta and rice can stretch a meal like nobody’s business. Seriously, if you’ve got water, and any one of those ingredients, you are just a few random vegetables away from a complete meal.

The hard part is, everyone’s recipe will be a little different because obviously, the whole point is really not to follow a recipe, but rather to use up what you have sitting in your fridge so you don’t  you have to toss your perfectly good small portions of food, into the trash.

Ingredients for Chicken Lentil Stew

3 tablespoons bacon fat
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup broccoli, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 ounces spinach, chopped
3/4 cup leftover shredded chicken
1/2 cup corn {I used canned}
1 cup lentils
4 cups chicken stock
1 {15oz} can stewed tomatoes
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Directions

Saute the onions and carrots in bacon fat until softened. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant but not browned. Next add the cumin, coriander, paprika, salt and pepper and cook and stir together for 1 minute.

Stir in the lentils, chicken stock, tomatoes and their juices, and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 20 minutes.

Stir the chopped spinach and cook uncovered until the spinach wilts and them serve with a crusty piece of bread. Or toast. toast works too. 🙂

~Mavis