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This vegan stew recipe features sprouted lentils, Lacinato kale, and colorful vegetables that form a hearty and savory stew.

Before I learned about cooking, statements like “Food connects us” sounded pretty cheesy. After all, I could easily buy a frozen pasty pocket at the grocery for dinner with no need to rely on anyone to get it and certainly no need to eat it with anyone. Throw in a self-checkout and my meal might have absolutely no human connection.
Related: 15 Best Lentil Recipes | Dal Makhani | Vegetarian Gumbo
Gradually, Alex and I have come to know new way to eat that involves people at every turn: growing the food, teaching us how to prepare it, and eating it with us. Food has connected us to some of the most fascinating, generous, and inspiring people we’ve met. People like Anna Watson Carl of The Yellow Table blog and cookbook of the same name. Anna, in fact, is where this vegan stew comes from! Keep reading for more about Anna’s book, this vegan stew recipe…and what sprouted lentils are!
Related: 10 Brain Food Recipes to Boost Your Mood

About the book
Anna is a home cook in NYC who radiates passion from her space on the internet. I was drawn to her zeal for entertaining and her authentic writing a few years ago, like this post on Choosing Connection Not Perfection. We’ve been virtual friends since, and I hope at some point we’ll make it to “real life” status.
Anna self-published a cookbook based on her blog called The Yellow Table, and it was so popular it’s now been picked up by a publisher and is now more widely available! It’s a fantastic book; a mix of classic yet approachable recipes that can be whipped up in about 30 minutes and appeal to a wide variety of palates and diets–we found plenty of veggie-centric options. A fun feature is affordable wine pairings listed with the main dishes, and some tips for throwing dinner parties (our fave). We picked this vegan stew with sprouted lentils to try for a dinner with friends and we were sold.
What are sprouted lentils?
Before we get to the vegan stew recipe though—what the heck are sprouted lentils? Sprouting lentils actually makes them easier to digest; the nutrients are easier for the body to absorb after sprouting. Sprouting lentils also helps to reduce intestinal gas! Alex and I don’t sprout all our grains, but we’ve tried it before. (We’ve also grown our own bean sprouts, which is related but totally different!)
When Alex and I went to make this vegan stew recipe, we actually found sprouted lentils sold dried at Whole Foods! This was a pleasant surprise since we didn’t realize sprouted lentils were widely available already dried and ready to go. If you’re interested in sprouting your own lentils, you can follow this method for how to sprout lentils: the lentils take about 2 days to sprout.
Related: What are Lentils?

How to make this vegan stew recipe
This vegan stew recipe is relatively quick and easy to put together, and full of flavor. A highlight for me was the sprouted lentils; I hadn’t cooked sprouted lentils before, but we loved the gentle texture that they added to the stew. This lentil stew recipe also features Lacinato kale, also called Tuscan kale or Dinosaur kale. It’s our favorite kale to use in soups, since it wilts down nicely and has a lovely flavor. We served our lentil stew with crusty bread and salad, and it was an easy casual Sunday night supper with friends.
Congratulations to Anna for your work on this book; it’s a gem!
Get the Book
The Yellow Table cookbook is available here.
Looking for plant based dinner recipes?
Aside from this vegan stew with sprouted lentils, here are some of our favorite vegan / plant based dinner recipes on A Couple Cooks:
- 15-Minute Gnocchi with Romesco Sauce
- Masoor Dal (Indian Red Lentils)
- Tomato Basil Gnocchi Soup
- Mango Black Bean Chili
- Chickpea Couscous Bowls with Tahini Sauce
- BBQ Bean Tacos with Pineapple Salsa
- Quick Coconut Lentil Curry
- Best Stir Fry Vegetables with Teriyaki
- Loaded Quinoa Tacos
- Easy Chickpea Salad Sandwich
- Instant Pot Wild Rice Soup Recipe
- Crispy Cauliflower Tacos with Yum Yum Sauce
This recipe is…
This vegan stew recipe is vegetarian, vegan, plant based, and refined sugar free.
Vegan Stew with Sprouted Lentils
This vegan stew recipe features sprouted lentils, Lacinato kale, and colorful vegetables that form a hearty and savory stew.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 small yellow onion
- 2 medium carrots
- 2 ribs celery
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 15-ounce can diced tomatoes with their juices
- 10-ounce package sprouted green lentils (or 1 ¾ cup sprouted lentils)*
- 1 bunch Tuscan (Lacinato) kale, tough stems removed, cut into bite-sized pieces
- Crusty bread, for serving
Instructions
- Dice 1 yellow onion. Peel and dice 2 carrots and 2 ribs celery. Mince 2 cloves garlic.
- In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrots, and celery and saute, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft and the onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir the garlic and saute, stirring occasionally, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the cumin, coriander, and red pepper flakes, if using, and saute, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Add the vegetable stock, the tomatoes and their juices, and the lentils, and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until thickened, 20-25 minutes. Stir in the kale and simmer over low heat until wilted, 1-2 minutes. Taste, and season generously with salt and pepper.
- Serve in shallow bowls with crusty bread. Store the soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. When reheating leftovers, you may need to add a little water, because the soup gets thicker the longer it sits.
Notes
Reprinted with permission from The Yellow Table by Anna Watson Carl
*You can find sprouted lentils at Whole Foods beside the regular lentils, or sprout your own.
I sprout my own lentils and this looks amazing! How much does the package of sprouted lentils make so I know how much of my own to add? Thanks so much!
You can use 1 3/4 cups of your own sprouted lentils. We’ve updated the recipe too — thank you!
Delicious! I sprouted 1-1/2 cups of lentils not knowing they would increase in bulk to almost 5 cups. I made sprouted lentil veggie burgers and still had enough to make this recipe,:) we are newly vegan due to my husbands health. This is a great recipe. Lots of flavor. Thank you!
Oh I’m so glad! Sprouted lentils are so tasty. Thanks for trying out the recipe, and good luck to you and your husband!
That soup looks so good! We do a similar stew with cannelloni beans and chard and for us non-vegetarians, some chorizo. Beautiful photos too :)
What a beautiful fall pairing of ingredients. Can’t go wrong with lentils!
THANK YOU guys so much!! Your photos are gorgeous, and so is the post. It makes me so happy to know that my recipes help people connect around the table, and really glad that you enjoyed the sprouted lentil stew! (It’s one of my winter favs.) Cannot wait to meet you both in person one of these days…we already have so many friends in common, it’s kind of hilarious :) xo
I love the physical act of cooking, but I love the connection that comes from sharing food even more. A good meal helps people linger around the table, laugh too loud, and stay up too late. Lentil soup is one of Aaron and my favorite foods, but I’ve never made it with sprouted lentils. I can’t wait to try this.
Oh connection is a big one for me too! And thank you for sharing another of your cookbook finds. I really enjoy sprouting and using sprouted legumes, grains, and nuts. It’s amazing how one easy upgrade in a recipe can transform a dish.
Beautiful! Is it me or do those lentils look exceptionally big? I love the size! Does the sprouting make them bigger? I actually got quite sad imagining the lack of connection so many feel as they purchase and eat their food. The self-checkout insight never occurred to me…someone could literally have no interaction with another human in any part of their meal. Food and community are so tightly linked for me it is hard to imagine another reality. I want everyone to have what so many of us have with respect to our relationship to food, togetherness, and community. Let’s share it with posts and recipes like this. xo