Lentils & Legumes

Italian cooking is a lot more than just pasta, pizza and tomatoes. In the ancient walled city of Norcia, Umbrian lentils & sausage is on every menu. Its rustic simplicity includes some of the best loved flavours of Italy. Italians are extraordinarily passionate about their local ingredients, so it's no wonder this famous dish highlights lentils and sausage. It comes from the hills of Umbria, where heritage pigs roam the land and pasta plays second fiddle to locally grown lentils.

You can fill more than Half Your Plate with this traditional Indian dish. It’s a complete vegetarian meal and a super-simple way to fill all your plate with big flavour and a last-second blast of dark green nutrition. You’ll love the bright finishing touch baby spinach adds to the dish and how easy it is to try this healthy trick anytime you cook up your favourite soup, stew or pasta!

Hummus is perhaps the world’s greatest dip. It’s unparalleled for addictive avor, smooth texture, nutritional value and the all-important functionality factor. With a batch of hummus ready, you can really release your creative juices. Try it on your favorite crackers, flatbreads or chips. Then top with smoked salmon, various charcuterie, even just plain sprinkled with green onions or giant dill sprigs.

Tex-Mex joints all have a variety of meaty fillings like this one on their menus packed with big, bright Tex-Mex flavors ready to roll into any type of tortilla. Burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, crispy tacos, soft tacos, tostadas, rotis—what will you roll?


Sweet potatoes are a superfood. They’ve earned this title by being so packed with nutrients, ounce for ounce, that they’re just plain nutritionally dense. Quite simply, they’re one of the single healthiest foods you can bring to your table. Tasty and easy too. Especially with the bright flavours of curry and ease of canned chickpeas. For this recipe simply toss everything together, toss into the oven, then sit back and wait for the compliments!

The year 2016 has been declared the International Year of Pulses by the United Nations to celebrate one of the world’s most important foods: the edible seeds of the legume family.

Beans, peas, chickpeas, and lentils are packed with fibre, protein, nutrients, and flavour. Their nutritional intensity, inexpensive accessibility, and ease of cooking have made them indispensible staples to cooks all over the globe.

Wherever we live, we all do our best to make healthy choices at home but it’s a lot easier when those choices are delicious. These meatless tacos are stuffed with so much sunny southwestern flavour that no one will notice anything missing. What a great way for your family to join families around the world in a global celebration of flavour and nutrition!

In the middle of winter, few dishes comforts cold hands and empty stomachs like a big bowl of steaming chili. This vibrant vegetarian version is bursting with bright flavours and stick-to-your-ribs heartiness. It's jam packed with veggies, beans and barley, which fills you up without weighing you down.

My kids love these burritos but they don’t know why. I do though. Lentils are flavour sponges. Lentils do such a good job absorbing the bright sunny flavours of the southwest that no one notices the missing **** in this burrito. They notice the crisp smoky bacon though!

This salad perfectly combines the flavours of the land and sea! The earthy heartiness of the lentils anchors the dish, the brininess of lobster adds lots of luxurious sweetness and the sharp, peppery arugula ties everything together.

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Hummus sounds exotic but it’s really just a simple puree of chickpeas. It’s also a nutritious dish and so easy to make. If you can puree chickpeas, you’ve got the basics and you’re ready to add some zesty twists and whip up your own signature dip!

This is one of my favourite side dishes because bacon and lentils are perfect together. The rich meatiness of bacon easily complements the earthy hearty flavours of lentils. Try making this dish once and it will instantly become one of your favourites too!