One of my lunch staples is a lentil veggie curry. I make a big batch that gives me about 25-30 lunch servings (200g or about 1/2 cup for 150ish calories). It’s a pretty loose recipe but I have standardized it a bit. It also really helps me maintain regularity so i make an effort to have it at least every other day.

450g dry lentils (about half of a large bag)
chicken stock (or any other stock)
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
diced garlic
1 hot pepper (your choice or omit)
1 medium to large onion
8 oz mushrooms
1 medium eggplant (about 1.5 pounds)
1 small can diced or petite diced tomatoes
1 large can All in One Tomatoes (chopped tomatoes in puree)
3-4 Tbsp garam masala (curry spice mix)


Start a small saucepan going with the lentils and the stock. I put in enough stock to cover the lentils and then add more stock as they cook to keep them just covered. A slow simmer is fine as they will finish cooking in the baking dish. Feel free to add more spices, but they will be added to a spicy veggie mixture, so don’t overdo it.

Prepare veggies. I use a fine dice on the garlic and hot peppers, a medium dice on the onion and I use the small french fry setting on my mandolin for the eggplant. Gives different sized bites for good texture in the final dish to have different sizes.

Sautee garlic, onions and pepper in olive oil. I add about half of the garam masala here and it makes the kitchen smell wonderful!

When the veggies are translucent, add the mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes until they get a little color and give up their juices.

Add eggplant (largest volume addition) and cook for another 5 minutes or so. The previous mixture will coat the eggplant, but you need to keep moving things around or the eggplant will scorch.

Add tomatoes and simmer for a short while.

Add contents of lentil pan, including stock. This will make a soupy mix, which is OK, as it will tighten some as it bakes. Check for desired spiciness and add remaining garam masala and any other spices (including salt) to hit desired spice level. I like mine spicy!

Using hand blender, puree about 25% of the mixture. Alternatively, take about 25% and blend into puree in a blender and return to cooking vessel.

Move to large baking dish and bake for 20-30 minutes or until desired consistency. This bakes out the excess stock and allow eggplant to fully cook and get yummy!

Cool and store in a large tupperware (or two). I weigh the mixture as I put into tupperware to see how many servings I end up with for use with MFP recipe maker. It general comes out to about 75 calories per 100g. Then I measure out my lunch servings (I usually serve about 200g for lunch) and add a little meat to the lunch serving. Reheat at lunch and enjoy!

Rob