A lentil salad with roasted cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and quite frankly one of the best dressings

This perfectly fits the "hearty salad" spot on my table

I’ve promised myself I will sand and repaint this picnic table over the summer. I’m writing it here to hold myself to it.

My ideal summer meal includes a leafy salad, a hearty salad with grains or lentils and then probably some corn or asparagus cooked on the bbq.

Our friends Matt and Ellie (who are wonderful cooks) invited us over last week before we all went our separate ways for the holidays and they prepared such a delicious feast. One of the salads was lentils, asparagus and broad beans. It reminded me just how much I like lentils in salads. They also made a coriander and green chilli sauce that I’ll be copying all summer AND they finished with roasted apricots and vanilla mascarpone - yep it was very classy.

Anyway, I’ve had salads on my mind constantly with the arrival of truly hot weather to Auckland and I woke this morning deciding that I needed to share this recipe with you. I’ve made many versions of it over the years. I used to make it with harder-to-find beluga lentils because they’re so pretty but these days I’ll mostly use French green lentils. Don’t overcook them and they’ll hold their shape nicely.

French green lentils and baby mozzarella with basil dressing & roasted cherry tomatoes

I know it’s not ideal to turn on the oven on very hot days to roast the tomatoes but it’s only 30 minutes and is absolutely worth it for how concentrated and sweet their flavour becomes. Maybe pop them on in the morning?

250g good quality cherry tomatoes, halved

3/4 cup French green lentils

1 1/2 cups vegetable stock

Zest of 1 lemon

1/4 red onion, peeled and sliced very thinly

125g cherry bocconcini or fresh mozzarella, torn in half or into bite-sized pieces 

Olive oil for roasting

Handful fresh basil leaves for salad

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil

1 clove garlic, finely diced

Juice of 1 lemon

½ teaspoon sugar

Large handful fresh basil leaves for dressing

Sea salt and cracked black pepper

Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small jug or bowl and use a hand blender to blitz until smooth. Set aside until ready to use. Placing it in the fridge for 15 minutes before serving will thicken the dressing a little. 

Preheat the oven to 140 degrees Celsius. Place the halved cherry tomatoes in an oven-proof dish. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and cracked black pepper. Roast for 30 minutes until just starting to shrivel and pucker around the edges. Leave to cool to room temperature.

Place the lentils and stock in a medium saucepan. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook for 15 minutes, with a lid slightly ajar, until all the liquid has been absorbed and the lentils are tender. Stir through the lemon zest. Leave to cool to room temperature before stirring through the red onion, half the dressing, half the tomatoes and half the fresh basil leaves.

To assemble, spoon the lentils onto a large plate. Scatter over the remaining tomatoes. Scatter the mozzarella or bocconcini. Drizzle the leftover dressing over the top as desired. Season with a little cracked black pepper and scatter with the remaining fresh basil leaves. Serve immediately.

Enjoy! x