What to Cook With Tinned Tomatoes and Red Lentils

The shop is shut, the fresh tomatoes are gone, and the only things left are a tin of chopped tomatoes and a bag of red lentils. Good news: that is dinner, and a decent one. If you are looking up what to cook with tinned tomatoes and red lentils, the short answer is daal, soup, or a thick lentil stew you eat with rice or bread.

The trick is not the recipe. It is the order you add the tomato.

The one rule: tomato goes in late

Tinned tomatoes are acidic, and acid slows the softening of lentils. Red lentils (masoor) are split and skinless, so they are forgiving, but they still cook faster and more evenly in plain water first.

So the plan is the same for every dish below:

1. Boil the lentils with water, turmeric and salt until completely soft.
2. Make the tomato and onion base in a separate pan.
3. Combine them at the end.

This is also how our daal chawal recipe is built. The lentils simmer about 20 minutes until completely soft, the onion-tomato masala is fried separately, and the two meet for the last 5 minutes. If your daal ever stays gritty, our post on why daal won't soften goes into the acid and water side.

Swapping tin for fresh tomato

Our masoor daal uses 1 chopped fresh tomato for 1 cup (200 g) of lentils. A few conversions help when you are working from a tin:

• A 400 g (14 oz) tin holds roughly the juice and flesh of 3 to 4 medium tomatoes, so one third to one half of the tin does the job for a daal for four.
• Tinned tomatoes carry extra liquid. Cook them down in the pan until the oil starts showing at the edges, which is the same cue the recipes on this site use for fresh tomato masala.
• Taste before salting. Tinned tomatoes can already be salted, depending on the brand, so add your salt in two stages.
• Some tins taste sharper. A pinch of sugar, about 1/4 teaspoon, rounds the edge. Do not add more than that.

Dinner one: tomato masoor daal (about 35 minutes)

This is the base recipe, built like the masoor daal on this site.

• Rinse 1 cup (200 g) red lentils until the water runs clear. No soaking is needed.
• Boil with 3 cups (720 ml) water, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric and salt for about 20 minutes, skimming foam, until the lentils break down when pressed. Whisk lightly.
• In a pan, heat 3 tablespoons oil, fry a sliced onion if you have one, then 4 cloves garlic and 1 teaspoon cumin for 30 seconds.
• Add a third of the tin, cook down for 5 minutes, then pour it into the daal and rest for 2 minutes covered.

Serve with rice or roti. If it thickens as it sits, loosen it with hot water, not cold.

Dinner two: a thick lentil soup

Our shorbat addas is a Gulf-style lentil soup built from 1.25 cups (250 g) of masoor, an onion, a carrot, garlic, cumin and a squeeze of lemon. It simmers about 25 minutes before blending. Tinned tomato is not in that recipe, but a few spoonfuls fried with the onion makes a redder, tangier version.

Blend it smooth with a hand blender and thin with water until it pours like double cream. Lemon goes in just before serving, not during cooking. If you do not have a carrot, leave it out; the soup will be paler but still fine.

Dinner three: Bengali-style dal with a tomato tarka

Musurir dal is red lentils boiled with turmeric and salt, then finished with a tarka of panch phoron (a Bengali five-seed mix), garlic slices and whole red chilli. The recipe has no tomato, but if you have no panch phoron either, swap in cumin seeds and a pinch of fennel.

Add a spoonful of the cooked-down tinned tomato to the tarka pan after the garlic goes golden, 1 minute before pouring it over. Finish with lime juice.

Dinner four: lentils and rice in one pot

If you have rice too, think khichdi. Our khichdi uses equal parts rice and split mung beans, simmered with turmeric until porridge-soft. You can use masoor instead of moong, which cooks faster and breaks down fully.

Rinse 3/4 cup (150 g) rice and 3/4 cup (150 g) red lentils together, then simmer with about 4 to 5 cups (1 to 1.2 litres) water and turmeric, stirring now and then, for about 25 minutes. Make a cumin-and-ghee tarka in a small pan and pour it over. A spoon of cooked-down tomato stirred in at the end gives a pink tinge and a sour edge.

What does not work

• Adding the whole tin at the start. The daal stays firm and tastes raw-acidic.
• Skipping the foam skim. Red lentil foam makes the daal boil over and taste soapy. Skim it in the first few minutes.
• Scorched garlic. In the tarka, garlic goes from pale gold to bitter within seconds. Keep the heat medium and pour the tarka when the garlic is pale gold.
• Storing it warm. Cooked lentils should be cooled and refrigerated within about 1 hour and eaten within 1 day, reheated until steaming hot.

Tonight's checklist from the cupboard

If you want to see which of these your own shelf can make, you can tick off the tin and the lentils in the Degchi pantry try-out and look at the matches.