Lentils w/ Kabocha Squash, Potatoes, Ginger, & Tamari
These Squash Lentils consist of kabocha squash, miniature potatoes, carrots, ginger, carolina reapers, green lentils, tamari, and rice vinegar. Although you can easily mix and match in your own favorite produce or what you have on hand. Rice cooker lentils are a great dish to make your own. It's incredibly simple to toss everything that you want into the pot, press cook, and have a delicious meal ready in no time at all. Just make sure not to overfill your rice cooker and to add slightly more than double the water needed for the lentils. Either way, it's an absolutely delectable pairing of sweet, savory, and subtle spice.
Equipment
- Rice Cooker
Ingredients
- 1½ c. kabocha squash roasted & puréed
- 4 miniature potatoes diced
- 1 carrot sliced
- 1 tbsp. ginger minced
- 1 carolina reaper pepper minced (or pepper of choice)
- 1¾ c. green lentils
- dash cumin
- dash coriander
- dash nutmeg
- dash salt
- dash pepper
- 3½ c. water
- 1/4 c. tamari (or soy sauce)
- 1/4 c. rice vinegar
Instructions
Prepare Ingredients
- I used Roasted Kabocha Squash in this recipe. This takes a couple of hours and requires aluminum foil and a baking dish. I am a big fan of ambercup squash. It's a medium-sized variety with dense flesh and a lot of flavor. You can easily substitute butternut squash, pie pumpkin, or other gourd of choice.
Cook Lentils
- Add all of the ingredients into a rice cooker. I like to start with the larger vegetables and then add the smaller ingredients. Top with the spices and vinegar. And then add the quinoa and water.This cooks the larger vegetables on the bottom, while dispersing the flavor profiles in the middle. Although with some mixing, this really doesn't matter all that much. Everything will eventually cook together!You can also add the rice vinegar and tamari after it cooks. If you add it before, it will be a more subtle flavor that permeates through the quinoa. Otherwise, add it afterwards for a brighter pop of flavor. I go back and forth on which one I prefer and routinely do both.
- Press the cook button on the rice cooker. It should take about 45 minutes to cook.
- When the quinoa is fully cooked, let sit for 10 minutes, and then fluff with a wooden spoon and serve.Do not use a fork or other metal utensil. It will scratch off the nonstick surface on the rice cooker. This will leach teflon into your food and cause future dishes to stick to the bottom.
Tips, Tricks, & Notes
- While quinoa is not rice, it does cook the same and oftentimes better than rice in a rice cooker. For more tips and tricks to rice cooker quinoa, check out my article on The Fundamentals of Making Quinoa, including a stovetop version if you don't have or don't want to use a rice cooker.
- I also tend to prefer tamari over soy sauce. They're both made from fermented soy and a lot of recipes use them interchangeably. Tamari tends to have a richer flavor and less salt content. It also tends to be gluten free.