High protein lentil tortillas
Sorry I’ve been quite quiet so far this year! After taking a few weeks off in December, it’s taking me a while to remember how to do this whole working mum thing. It’s just far too tempting to sit and watch my daughter playing all day long – she’s learning to crawl at the moment and it’s fascinating. Unfortunately I didn’t receive an extra 8 hours in the day for Christmas (fingers crossed for next year!).
When I finally get around to cooking, I’ve still been trying to keep things fairly healthy. My new year’s resolutions have lasted a whole two weeks so far, which is a good start! Don’t worry, there’s some cheese in my next recipe, but for now, another healthy one – lentil tortillas!
I really enjoyed the low-carb cauliflower tortillas I posted earlier last year, and I’ve had some lovely feedback from those of you who’ve tried them, so I thought I’d experiment a bit more. Lentils are super low in fat and high in protein, so they seemed a good place to start. These lentil tortillas have over 10 grams of protein each! Plus, they’re gluten-free, so a good option for those of you who can’t eat flour tortillas.
To make these super simple lentil tortillas, I just blitzed up some cooked red lentils with a few eggs and some seasoning, and fried the mixture like pancakes. It took a couple of attempts to get them just right, but I’m happy with how they turned out. Just make sure you cook the first side of each tortilla fairly thoroughly before you try turning them over, otherwise they have a habit of breaking in half.
The end result is pretty good! They’re more brittle than normal tortillas, so I doubt you’d be able to roll them tight enough to make enchiladas or anything like that (if you need a more flexible gluten-free tortilla, use my cauliflower tortillas instead!), but they’re able to be folded loosely around a filling. You could always try adding another egg to make them a little more flexible – I found that changing the recipe from two to three eggs made a huge difference!
Here I stuffed my lentil tortillas with some salad and avocado (I didn’t have any hummus but that would have been a good addition too) for a nice, healthy lunch. It felt good to know that even the ‘bread’ part of my lunch was really nutritious! I’ll definitely be experimenting more with these.
Now what else can I tortilla-ify? Answers on a postcard please.
High protein lentil tortillas
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Print Pin CommentIngredients
- 170 g (~ 3/4 cup) dried red lentils
- 1/2 vegetable stock cube
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- Black pepper
- Spray oil for frying
Instructions
- Boil the lentils in plenty of water, with a vegetable stock cube crumbled in for extra flavour. When the lentils are soft but still holding their shape (around 10 minutes), drain them, and transfer to a food processor.
- Add the eggs, onion powder and plenty black pepper – you may not need extra salt unless you used low sodium stock. Blitz thoroughly until smooth.
- Lightly spray a non-stick frying pan with oil, and place over a medium heat. Add around 1/6 of the lentil mixture to the pan, and use the back of a spoon to spread it out into the shape of a pancake. If the tortilla is too thin or too thick it will break a bit more easily – it might take a little practice to find the perfect size.
- Thoroughly cook the tortilla until the underside is starting to turn golden. Very carefully use a large spatula to turn the tortilla over, and repeat with the other side.
- Transfer the cooked lentil tortilla to a plate, and repeat with the remaining mixture. You should end up with around 6 tortillas in total. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.
Note: Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on exactly what ingredients you choose. Information above is for 1 tortilla.
Don’t forget to check out my low carb cauliflower tortillas too!
I tried the recipe- more like pancake than tortilla. Crumbly and Cakey. What did I do wrong??
Hi Ruth, as mentioned in the blog post, they are a bit crumblier and more brittle than a regular tortilla, so they’re not quite the same – just a nice change from the usual :)
can brown or green lentils be used to make these tortillas in substitution? just wondering because i have a bunch given to me. if used would i need to soak longer or do anything different?
Brown and green lentils don’t cook down as much as red, so I can’t say for sure that they’d work as well – but since it’s all being blended anyway, it might turn out well. Worth a try! No need to soak lentils :)
@Joanne, you can. Look up poodla/pudla that’s what these are and can be made with moong beans. They are not tortillas, originally a dish from Northern India.
Hi, Thanks for sharing the process with us.
I have a problem with heating the skillet. Can you please tell me what you actually mean by medium and medium high heat?
A high heat would mean putting your hob on the highest setting, a medium heat is halfway up, and medium high is somewhere between the two :) I can’t really be more specific than that because it totally depends on your own hob and how hot it gets. My hob has settings from 1 – 6, so for medium high I’d probably use a 4 or 5 :) Hope that helps!
Oww! Thanks a lot, Becca. Got it.
Hello hello! Very interested in trying to make these as I am a vegetarian college student with not a ton of options! Do you think regular lentils would work instead of red? I know they do not cook to be as mushy but do you think they would work with some extra blending?
I think brown or green lentils should work!
Hi I gave these a go today, they are fiddly to get to stay whole and I found them a bit bland. I will try them again and flavour them with chilli or something else.
Yes I do think it takes a bit of practice to get the right size and thickness to help them hold together. You could definitely add whatever spices you like :)
Could you mix cauliflower AND lentils together,would that work?
Definitely worth a try! In fact I think it might make them a little less brittle than just the lentils alone :)
I can’t wait to try this recipe! We are having tortilla party this weekend and this is exactly what I was looking for! And Happy New Year! :)
Becca! Welcome back! Happy New Year to you and the family! And enjoy your little treasure: -)
I’ve been reading your blog but could not write because my life got very hectic (work and sick parents). But I can hardly wait to make these tortillas! Can we use canned dry lentilles? I can imagine hummus would be the best topping. I do my own, all organic and look forward to this meal! My son is 14 and loves lentilles, he challenged my creativity in the kitchen every once in a while and this recipe is what I will do tomorrow!
Have a good evening!
P.S. I have canned French lentil (therefore wrote lentilles:-) Hope the type of lentil does not matter.
Thank you, happy new year! :) I’m sure canned lentils would work too! You might need to play around a little to get the right quantities, since you won’t be starting with dried lentils so the weight will be different.
These look really good. I would definitely eat these! I’m not a huge fan of chick peas but that could be another option. Happy New Year to you and your family!
Ooh I wonder if chickpeas would work! They’re a bit firmer than lentils but worth a try!