Lentils are often treated badly by various cuisines, because they are regarded boring and often something like a nutritional obligation.

This is far from the truth, and this delicious salad with basil pesto proves it. In fact, if you serve this dish without cooling the pasta, it turns out it can be a warm dish as well.

 

Laziness Factor: 2

[where 0 is feeding a small pet bird and 4 is saving the Arctic]

Cooking time: 30 minutes

 

Ingredients for 4-5 servings:

– 500g fusilli

– 100g lentils

– 4 tomatoes

– 2 cups of basil leaves

– 2 garlic cloves

– 5 tbsp olive oil

– salt and pepper

 

Here is a video version of this recipe:

1.

First thing you do is start boiling the lentils. In fact, this is going to change your preparation time: if you choose a pressure cooker, it will be ready in 10-12 minutes.

2.

Five minutes later, start boiling your fusilli according to the cooking instructions.

3.

Dice the tomatoes or chop them into small pieces.

4.

When the lentils are ready, drain them with a colander and put them in a large bowl.

5.

Add the tomatoes.

6.

Put the basil, the two peeled garlic cloves, the olive oil and some salt in a food processor.

7.

The result might seem slightly off-putting but it smells great and tastes even better.

8.

When the fusilli are ready, drain them and cool them down a bit.

9.

Mix everything and serve. So much tastier than a lentil soup, if you ask me… Bon appetit!

What is LazyPasta.com?

Lazy Pasta is the page to explore the world's collection of easy pasta recipes - and then some more elaborate ones. As our life has become faster, you can also try our quick recipes that use favourite pasta types like spaghetti, lasagne, fusilli and rigatoni, that are combined to create simple pasta dishes.

All the Lazy Pasta recipes are presented in photos, which guide through the step-by-step process, and they all end up with their respective pasta recipe video.

Categories of pasta recipes

Lazy Pasta recipes are divided into categories: there are vegetarian pasta recipes, pasta recipes with meat, pasta recipes with seafood and fish, pasta salads, pasta soups and recipes with baked pasta.

The recipe presented above is Fusilli Salad with Lentils, Tomato and Basil Pesto and it belongs to the Pasta Salad Recipes category.

Why pasta?

Pasta is a great ingredient for quick and delicious dishes. Perfect pasta dishes don't always have to be hard to prepare. According to Lazy Pasta there is "an easy pasta recipe for every human on the planet".

Although it's hard to tell which country pasta originates from (whether it's Italy or China), the history of pasta is long and interesting.

Truth be told, pasta has become popular as an ingredient of the Italian cuisine and it forms part of the Mediterranean diet. Pasta dishes can be ordered and devoured in various Italian restaurants all around the world.

The secret of the pasta may lie in its simplicity. It is usually made of white flour or wheat flour, but today we also have the options of whole wheat pasta and, more recently, gluten-free pasta.

Then again, the list of ingredients that can be used in a pasta recipe is endless; The sauce can be anything for a simple tomato sauce to bechamel sauce, white sauce with cream or other dressings. Garlics and onions are great friends of pasta, vegetables and other greens like parsley, dill, spinach, zucchini, peppers, broccoli and mint can be found in various recipes, while cheese is an absolute ticket to success, either grated, sliced or baked on top.

No matter how elaborate a pasta recipe is, the result can be mouth-watering and is certain to please everyone's palate.