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Easy to make and delicious to eat, these healthy lentil cakes are great served with a fresh yogurt sauce for an appetizer or as part of a fuller meal. Packed with plant-based protein they are one tasty way to get the goodness in.
Ingredients & substitutions
- Green cooked lentils: You can use any lentils you’d like. Make sure to cook them according to package instructions. While the recipe does work with red lentils, they can be more soft, so you may need to add more oats to give them better structure if you use the red variety.
- Onions and garlic: Sautéed for a rich layer of flavor in each bite.
- Mushrooms: Crimini, or Baby Bella, mushrooms are widely available and perfect to use in this recipe for a great earthy flavor.
- Oats: Use rolled oats to give the lentil cakes texture. This makes them bulky while keeping the recipe gluten-free. You can however substitute with breadcrumbs or panko breadcrumbs.
- Eggs: To bind the ingredients together. To make these lentil cakes vegan, you can substitute with a flax egg.
- Spices: Paprika and salt.
How to make lentil cakes
- Cook the onion until soft.
- Add mushrooms and cook until brown before stirring in the garlic.
- Add the mushroom mix and the rest of the lentil cake ingredients to a food processor.
- Mix until combined and the mixture holds well.
- Shape the mixture into patties to make the lentil cakes.
- Cook on both sides in a skillet until golden brown.
- Place the fried patties onto kitchen paper to absorb any oil and serve with yogurt sauce or tzatziki.
Tips for making lentil cakes
- Fry the onions, mushrooms and garlic. You might be tempted to skip that part since everything gets cooked later on with the lentils. But this first step adds so much more flavor by releasing the aromatics of the raw ingredients first before blending.
- Feel the texture. You’re looking for pasty texture to start to form a ball in the food processor when combined. It should hold well together before cooking, so feel free to adjust as needed if it doesn’t stay compact.
- Make it in less time. You can buy pre cooked lentils to make these patties super quick to make, or batch cook your lentils as they will be good to use for about a week.
- Oven bake or fry. It’s best to pan fry these lentil cakes as they get nice and crispy, but you can oven bake them at 350F for around 30 minutes if you prefer.
Frequently asked questions
Yes! You can form the patties and keep them covered in the fridge for up to 4 days until you are ready to cook them. Leftovers will keep well in the fridge for 4 days and can be reheated gently in a skillet or in the oven.
If you want to freeze these lentil cakes, it’s best to cook them first. Let them cool before freezing them in an airtight container with the patties separated with parchment paper. Thaw them in the fridge before reheating.
These are great when served the creamy lemony dill yogurt dip as a simple appetizer, and they are also great served in pita or even as burgers with toppings. Serve them as a main with your favorite sides like:
Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Shirazi Salad
Cauliflower with Tahini
Garlic Roasted Potatoes
So simple and easy to make, these protein loaded lentil cakes are great for a healthy appetizer, lunch or main meal. Perfect for dipping, this is a recipe the whole family will love.
More similar appetizers:
If you’ve tried this healthy-ish feel good Lentil Cakes recipe or any other recipe on FeelGoodFoodie, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave a comment below! It helps others who are thinking of making the recipe. We would love to hear about your experience making it. And if you snapped some shots, share it on Instagram so we can repost on Stories!
Lentil Cakes
Video
Ingredients
For the cakes:
- 4 tablespoons olive oil divided
- ½ medium yellow onion chopped
- 8 ounces crimini mushrooms sliced
- 2 cloves garlic clove sliced
- 2 cups cooked brown lentils
- ¾ cup rolled oats
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
For the yogurt sauce:
- ½ cup plain whole milk yogurt
- 2 tablespoons fresh dill
- ½ lemon zested and juiced
- 1 garlic clove finely grated
- Kosher salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add onion and cook until soft and translucent, 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and 1 tablespoon olive and cook until mushrooms are golden brown, 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute. Remove from heat and wipe out skillet.
- In the bowl of a food processor, add mushroom mixture, lentils, oats, eggs, smoked paprika and salt. Process until the mixture is fully incorporated and starts to ball. Roll into golf ball sized spheres and press down slightly to make a cake-like patty.
- Make the yogurt sauce by combining all ingredients in a medium bowl, and season to taste.
- Line a baking sheet with paper towels. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in wiped skillet over medium high heat. Add patties, working in batches, and cook until golden brown, 3 minutes per side. Transfer to prepared baking sheet. Serve with yogurt sauce immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information provided is an estimate. It will vary based on cooking method and specific ingredients used.
My processed ingredients couldn’t hold a ball shape; it was too loose. I added more oatmeal, still too loose. I pan-fried them just the same, but the insides wouldn’t cook adequately. So now I’ve put the entire skillet of patties into the oven to bake. Hopefully I’ve salvaged them!
Hi, so sorry to hear the recipe didn’t work for you. Did you put the ingredients in the food processor until they started to ball? It sounds like you may not have processed them for long enough. I hope you were able to salvage them in the oven!
I made your Mujadara Hamra this morning and it was so delicious. I saw this recipe for your Lentil Cakes and wanted to try them. I followed the recipe as you suggested, only substituting the Mujadara Hamra for the plain cooked lentils. OMG – it is sooo good, I just felt the need to tell you. Thank you for your recipes, I have made so many of them and I’ve never been disappointed.
Aww so happy you enjoyed it!
I need to eat more pulses as I do not like meat but I also do not like recipes that over do the chilli, garlic or curry flavours just a little is more than enough for me
So glad you liked them!
I’m excited to have come across this recipe, though I’ll need to do some tweaking.
First, it’s far too wet. Maybe needs more oats?
Second…it’s super bland. Could really use some spices or herbs.
I’ll keep experimenting. Thanks for the recipe.
So sorry to hear that the recipe didn’t work out for you. Thank you for the feedback!
Omg this is soooooooo good!!!!! I wanted to brighten up with something new, yummy and hot but yet healthy to eat! And, this hits all the right notes 😍 Yummna you are the best!! Hope you do win the Foodie Influencer of the year!!!
Quick question: can we use yellow lentils? Like yellow split pigeon peas?
Thanks!!
Thank you so, so much! You can use any lentils you’d like. Make sure to cook them according to package instructions.
Omg this is soooooooo good!!!!! I wanted to brighten up with something new, yummy and hot but yet healthy to eat! And, this hits all the right notes 😍 Yummna you are the best!! Hope you do win the Foodie Influencer of the year!!!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it!
What can I substitute for the mushrooms?
I have yet to try this recipe with a mushroom substitute.
They turned out great! I would highly recommend to try it with the yoghurt sauce as they can be a bit dry when eating the lentil cakes alone.
Thank you Yumna for sharing !
Thank you! I think the yogurt dip really makes a difference too!
Wow, they look amazing👏 😍❤
Thank you so much!
Can you replace the mushrooms with another vegetable? Like, zucchini? Thank you for your awesome recipes!
I have yet to try this recipe with a mushroom substitute. If you use zucchini, you’d probably need to make sure to squeeze out some of the liquid from it!
I just cooked it and it’s wonderful. Definitely doing again! Thank you!!!
Thank you so much! Yay!!