Using canned lentils in a crock pot

January 5, 2015 10:01 AM

I got a crock pot for Christmas, yay! I want to make this Slow-Cooker Spanish Lentil and Chorizo stew. It calls for dried lentils but I only have canned. Will putting them in a crock pot for 5 hours turn them into complete mush? Can I do it, or do I have to venture out onto the icy street of death to get dried lentils?
posted by winterportage to Food & Drink (10 answers total)

I would suggest making the stew without the lentils and then add them for the last, say, half-hour of cooking in the crockpot. Or you could wait until you had a chance to get some dried lentils. You're right, five hours in the crockpot will turn them into complete mush, and I think it would be a waste of your sausage and other ingredients.
posted by kate blank at 10:05 AM on January 5, 2015 [12 favorites]

Agree, add them last. Lentils are great for fiber and protein but they're not going to impart a ton of flavor to the thing so it's okay to add them later as long as you have enough liquid. That said, there are worse things than mushy lentils so it wouldn't be the worst thing if you cooked them, they will just disintegrate.
posted by jessamyn at 10:07 AM on January 5, 2015

Completely agree with Kate Blank. Add cooked lentils at the end of the recipe, or else you'll just get mush. No need to go out!
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:07 AM on January 5, 2015

The original recipe would also result in Very Soft lentils. Canned pronounced fine over here. If you're at home, add about half of them an hour before the end, if you want some intact lentils.

Look at it this way: you can make delicious stew now, and in the spring, you can make it the "original" way, which is something to look forward to on top of the roads getting de-icy-of-death-ified.
posted by Namlit at 10:08 AM on January 5, 2015

If you have canned lentils, just skip the slow cooker. Personally, I'd brown the chorizo, onions and garlic in some oil, then dump it in a pot with the liquids lentils and spices, bring to a boil and simmer for maybe 10 minutes.
posted by empath at 10:09 AM on January 5, 2015 [14 favorites]

Yeah, it'll mush them, and the recipe is all about cooking the lentils, so adding them last doesn't really work here, because all you'd be cooking before then is sausage, stock and aromatics. If you're intent upon using the crockpot and it has a "keep warm" setting, you could try sweating the onions, garlic and chorizo in a separate pan, then bunging everything into the crock pot on "keep warm" for half an hour or so.

Honestly, you'd be better off doing it all in a regular pan.
posted by holgate at 10:11 AM on January 5, 2015

But, I think you're going to have more of a soup than a stew that way, because the reason you used dried lentils and cook for a long time is they thicken the broth into more of a stew as they cook, and they'll absorb the stock flavor. Canned lentils will do neither of those things, unfortunately. You'll also want to use quite a bit less liquid since they won't be absorbing any, maybe 2 cups or less of the broth, instead of 4 cups.
posted by empath at 10:15 AM on January 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

You could also use other dried ingredients instead of lentils -- quinoa for example.
posted by empath at 10:19 AM on January 5, 2015

The slow cooker is to soften the lentils. They're already soft, so you can make the stew on the stove and just add the lentils there. Maybe simmer for 20 or so minutes so the lentils can absorb the flavors of the other ingredients.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 10:29 AM on January 5, 2015

Make the stew in the pot minus lentils, add drained and rinsed lentils for just long enough to warm them up before eating--say 15 minutes.

They'll dissolve otherwise. You may need to thicken the stew in another way--cornstarch slurry is one, roux is another.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:47 PM on January 5, 2015