Make this 30g protein lentil and mushroom ragu for dinner tonight
Nutritionist Emma Bardwell’s new book is full of recipes that help you hit the magic number of 30g protein per meal to keep you feeling full – and banish snack attacks. Like this easy, hearty, vegetarian pasta dish
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Doesn’t it get boring working out what to cook for dinner every night for decades? And it’s not just a case of deciding what to eat and sourcing the ingredients, there’s also ensuring it’s healthy, hearty, not too expensive and will be eaten – without a soundtrack of moaning – by every member of your household. No wonder so many of us just make spaghetti bolognese on repeat.
The good news is we’ve got an excellent veggie alternative to the ubiquitous spag bol for you. It’s from the equally excellent new eating plan and recipe book The 30g Plan: How to eat more protein, fibre and plants to lose weight and feel great (Vermillion, £13.35) by straight-talking nutritionist and GTG expert Emma Bardwell.
So may we present a lentil and mushroom ragu with spaghetti that clocks up a hefty 30g of protein per serving – as you may guess from the title of Bardwell’s book, this is the goal – to clock up 30g of protein per meal – that she recommends, to help with muscle growth and recovery, hormone production (it’s especially important for midlife women) and stave off the kind of snacking that may lead to weight gain.
We’ve also managed to nab Bardwell’s harissa chickpeas with pan-fried salmon so that’s tomorrow’s dinner sorted too!
OK, ready to cook up some hearty goodness?
Emma Bardwell’s lentil and mushroom ragu
Protein 30g, fibre 13g, 515kcal per portion
Serves 2 | Total time: 45 minutes
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 125g red lentil spaghetti
- 300g chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 1 medium red onion, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 medium tomatoes, diced
- 1 pouch (250g) ready cooked puy lentils
- 2tsp powdered veg stock or 1 vegetable stock cube
- Handful of basil leaves, sliced into strips
Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large frying pan, add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and fry for around 10 minutes until they start to brown and crisp around the edges. Set them aside.
Meanwhile boil water in a medium sized saucepan and cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions, making sure you reserve a mugful of the starchy pasta water which you’ll need later.
Add a few sprays of olive oil to the same frying pan that you cooked the mushrooms in and fry the onions for around 5–10 minutes until they start to soften, add the garlic and cook for a further minute, then add the tomatoes and cook for 2–3 more minutes.
Tip the mushrooms back into the frying pan and add the lentils, the stock and around 200ml of the reserved pasta water. Give everything a good stir and leave to simmer for 5 minutes to allow the ragu mixture to reduce, thicken and become saucy.
Heap the pasta into bowls and serve the ragu on top with the strips of basil.
Extracted from The 30g Plan (Vermillion, £13.35) by Emma Bardwell
