Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Lentil Ham Salad

This is a Taste of Home recipe (Yet again! What can I say, I like Taste of Home!). The combination of ingredients looked really good, and I'm always up for trying something new. Originally it called for chicken, but we have a huge thing of ham in the fridge, so once again I substituted ham for the chicken.

After making and eating this salad, I debated whether to post this recipe or not. I didn't particularly care for it, but Jeff liked it. In the end I thought, why not? After all, I took pictures, and I might as well post them. So here it is.

Lentil Ham Salad
2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
1 cup cooked lentils
1 cup diced ham (or chicken)
1 cup diced celery
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chunky salsa
2 tbsp. dried onions (original recipe called for 4 green onions, chopped)
1 tbsp. lemon juice

In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients. In a small bowl, combine the mayo, salsa, onions, and lemon juice. Pour over salad; toss gently to coat. Serve immediately.

This recipe was deceptively time-consuming. Sure, the instructions just say, combine the ingredients. But when you look at the ingredients, about half of them say chopped, diced, or shredded! It took a little while to prep all the veggies and stuff.

Like I said, this wasn't my favorite salad. I though the mayo and salsa would turn out really good, but it just didn't do it for me. I like the idea of lentils in a salad, especially because they're healthy, easy and quick to cook, and very inexpensive. But next time, I'll probably just make up a different salad to put them in.

***Update: I took some leftover salad and added about a teaspoon of sugar. It tasted much better! More like a coleslaw. With sugar, this salad goes from weird to tasty.***

1 comment:

Michelle said...

You know, I would try it again, but use the chicken. Chicken is such a mild flavor that the salsa and mayo thing would be yummy. The ham is a dominant kind of flavor, that has to go with other strong ones like cheddar and broccoli, that probably through the taste off. I'll bet the chicken would be awesome! The picture looks cool!