After having Mujadara many times at local Middle Eastern, particularly Lebanese, restaurants my husband set off to learn how to make it himself. It has since become one of our go to dinners. It’s simple, easy and transports you to a far off land in one taste of this dish. I can feel the heat, smells the scents of spice markets and hear the sounds of people walking around throughout these lands that filter through with each bite.
What you need
1 Cup Lentils
1 Cup Rice
3 1/2 Cups Water
4 Onions
1 Teaspoon Cumin
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Pepper
2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
Serves 4–6
How to put it together
Slice the onions. The onions should be sliced long, so they look like a rainbow versus diced into small pieces.
Heat pot on med-high heat. Add 1 Tablespoon of Vegetable Oil and 1/2 an onion. Cook until onion is caramelized.
Add lentils, water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, add rice and 1 Teaspoon Cumin. Cover and simmer for additional 20 minutes.
Heat a frying pan over med-high heat. Add the remaining 1 Tablespoon of Vegetable Oil and remaining onions. Cook until fully caramelized and blackened.
Also, he used green lentils & yellow onions for this dish.
We usually serve our Mujadara with hummus & pita. Let me tell you it goes fast. And it is a great meal to have when you are looking for something meatless, easy, and delicious.
Are the any Middle Eastern or Lebanese dishes that you enjoy?
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Thanks for the recipe. I’ll have to get my husband to try it. Men in the kitchen are real men.
Dana
I agree about men in the kitchen, something very manly about it.
This looks interesting! Can I ask how you pronounce “mujadara”, and also what kind of lentils and onions you use? (Would red lentils and regular yellow onions work?)
I’ve always heard it pronounced “moou-jha-dar-rah” (roughly speaking)
My husband makes brown version with green lentils. He did use yellow onions because that is what we had on hand (it’s also how he was taught to make it), I have seen people use a sweet white onion too. And yep you can use red lentils but be careful because I have heard from some say the red lentils can get too soft although others have said they prefer red lentils.
That’s what makes this dish so wonderful is that you’ll see it vary by region in the world based on what people have available.
I also just updated the post to indicate the use of green lentils & yellow onions!
I just wanted to update, that this recipe was DELISH! And now I want to just dive into Lebanese recipes. So good! And we have a Lebanese family in town that runs a doughnut shop and also sell Lebanese ingredients, so I feel so hooked up! LOL Thanks!
Such a simple yet delicious meal
Yes, it is a very simple & delicious dish. It is also very inexpensive.
Mujadara is one of my favorite dishes – I can’t wait to try my hand at making it at home!
I love how simple this recipe is-I bet it tastes so delicious with all those spices! YUM, I am looking forward to trying this out!
Such a simple, but I bet, very tasty dish.. rice and lentils with spices YUM!!
We just made this! We used 1/2 red lentils and 1/2 green lentils and I think that gave an ideal texture. The give and ‘throughout’ flavour of red lentils (as some of them completely mushed up and permeated the dish – some stayed more whole), plus the bite of the green lentils. Followed cooking times as listed. We are huge cumin fans so this is a hit. For me, it would go great with an Indian curry-gravy dish, which would also up the heat (and on that front, I recc http://www.ecurry.com another cool blog out there on the cooking front…I just bumped into it the same way I bumped into this blog!).
Thank you for sharing, we will be making this inexpensive, yummy and healthy meal again.
I would like to make this using brown rice. How would you change the cooking direction for brown rice?
Add the brown rice at the same time as the lentils. Cook for 45-50 minutes.
This is a beautiful dish. Love your pictures.
Love love love this! Have made it twice in the past week and a half. Thanks for introducing me to this fantastic dish. I add some crushed mustard seeds to mine – it really amps up the flavour.
Growing up with a lebanese grandmother this dish has been a stable my whole life. Having moved away from home and to a city with much fewer arabic groceries, I have been looking for a good moujadarah recipe for a while! I especially love how many onions you put, always my favourite part.
P.S.
You asked for other dishes we enjoy, here ya go!
Fatouche (salad much yummier than the well known tabbouleh)
Kibbe (traditionall meat filled but there are some delishious veggie versions being made now)
Spinach Fatayer
All the above plus moujadarah seriously just described our “moms too tired to cook so shes unfreezing lebanese food YAY” dinner.
My family loves lentils, and this sounds like a yummy new way to fix them. I’m assuming I should add the remaining three and a half onions to the mix after thoroughly caramelizing them; is that right?
Thanks for the recipe!
As a graduate student, my budget is rather limited, so I absolutely loved this recipe because it’s delicious, healthy, and inexpensive, and the leftovers only get better! The cumin makes all the difference in the flavor. Thanks for a great recipe!
You can also make this with ground beef. You just fry the beef with the onions, add allspice and cinnamon to it along with the pepper and salt, and then once it’s sufficiently fried with the onions you add the water, boil it, add the lentils and proceed exactly as the recipe says.
It’s pretty amazing to eat. Especially with Arabic bread, pickles, and more onions fried or otherwise.
Hi, my mom, who is Middle Eastern, starts this dish by caramelizing (not burning) the 4 onions then adding the lentils and water and after 20 minutes either rice or burgul (crushed wheat). The idea is that the lentils and either rice or burgul will absorb the flavor and color from the onions. She also serves this dish with plain yogurt (yum!) and a simple salad with a lemon and olive oil dressing that you can mix with the yogurt and lentils. Sounds weird but the mix is unbelievably good, I promise, it’s like the perfect bite of food.
If you cook the lentils in vegetable broth instead of water it gives it a very rich flavor.
Great recipe. I am tempted to add chopped baby spinach… Any thoughts?
I first cooked this recipe 25 years ago when I stopped eating meat. The version I used most was found in an ancient Vegie Times mag. It may not be traditional but it is good.
Mostly the same but with two changes: Use whole cumin seed and fry it up in the oil before you start carmelizing the onions and second, add some fresh spinach when you fold everything together at the end. I also sometimes use Ghee for my oil because of the high burn point. It adds to the calories though.
Whoa, especially good with a big can of roasted, crushed tomatoes…
How many people should this recipe serve? I need to get an idea so I know how much more to make, if necessary.
4-6 full servings, although if you serve with hummus & pita and/or a fattoush salad you could probably stretch it farther.
Lebanon is not in the desert!
WOWSERS! So delicious! I made some modifications based on what I had on-hand. I used chicken broth instead of water, and I used sumac* in the place of cumin, and added also the juice of an entire lemon as well. Holy smokes this is delicious – and even tastes amazing cold, too!
*of course of the Rhus strain variety, not the poison sumac variety!
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