Sabut Masoor Dal (Spiced Brown Lentils) Recipe (2024)

Apparently masoor dal is just red lentils. (I didn't know, and I don't know why the Times didn't say that.) Also, high heat won't cook the lentils any faster than low heat, once it's boiling. If it's not in a pressure cooker, water always boils at the same temperature. Also, instead of boiling a lot of water and then removing the excess, you can just use less water. It may require more stirring and attention to prevent clumping and scorching, but lower heat will help with that too.

Don’t forget the kachumbar, a vital part of every Jndian meal. Diced tomatoes and cucumbers, sliced red onions, lemon juice, cilantro, salt, pepper and sprinkling of red chili powder.

This is a delicious red lentil dish. Instead of the rather anemic tomatoes available right now I used a can of Mutti crushed polpa and, thinking 1/2 tsp each of garlic and ginger rather stingy, I went for a heaping tsp of each. No Thai chiles to be found so used two whopping serranos. Oh, grating the onion is the way to go. I learned from Turkish cooks and grating the onion adds a wonderful texture and flavor to lentils. Tomato/cuke/cilantro/onion salad on side!!!

A pressure-cooker or instant-pot will cut down the cooking time by about10-15 minutes. 5-7 minutes of pressure is usually enough.

Brown lentils are red inside. When the "brown" lentils are hulled & split they are "red" lentils. "Sabut" means whole or unhulled so "sabut masoor dal" is a dal made with whole brown lentils.

If possible, buy organic daal. Most Indian Stores now carry one or two organic brands. My husband is from a farming Punjabi family and he was shocked by the enormous chemical use last time he visited his village.

Why not just use less water in the first place?You're throwing away water-soluble nutrients for no apparent reason.

Sabut masoor dal are whole brown lentils. Here is a reference for Indian dal names in English: https://www.veganricha.com/indian-dals-names/. Instead of 7 cups of water use 2 or 2.5 cups. To cook them fast use a pressure cooker as high heat changes nothing. Also, this dish needs about double the spices and only 1 Thai chile. There are much better recipes online, most of them by Indian cooks.

I have read that masoor dal from India should be avoided because of glyphosate. Perhaps other red lentils are ok.

Ver good dish! I used what I had on hand … brown lentils. The seasonings sounded timid to me so I doubled all the dry spices, ginger & garlic. Made kambuchar as recommended below. Will definitely do again.

Next time ask for brown lentils, or whole masoor, or masoor sabut or masoor, whole masoor as can be seen in the picture,has its coating[fibre!}. Red lentils either split or football lentils, are not the same as the dal in the recipe, and will also taste different. Most of the branded masoor in the Indian stores, is from Canada, this is with reference to the glyphosate comment

From Maia Kamal’s South Indian recipes (all delicious) I learned to toast 1/4 cup of unsweetened fine shredded coconut on the stovetop before using the same pan to fry the tadka, then set it aside and add it to the dal at the end of cooking. Great addition. I also cook the tomatoes in with the dal but I look forward to trying it this way.

I used my pressure cooker, followed the directions exactly, and had a lovely dish in half the time, just perfect after work (I cooked the rice in my Zojirushi rice maker). I love the different types of dal, and this one will definitely join my rotation. One time-saving trick I have is to make a double amount of rice, and freeze it in portion sizes as soon as it cools down. I microwave the rice straight from the freezer and it is just like freshly made - it keeps frozen about 30 days.

A dollop of ghee or butter on each serving, please.

Koko below says that Masoor Dahl is just RED Lentils, a popular type that's easily available. You see them easily too as they have a pleasant light orange color; they deserve their own color category perhaps (I used to paint watercolor and oil pastels).For decades they were my favorite lentils bc they cook in 20 minutes or so and have a very pleasant delicate taste. For best taste and speed it's better to ADD water to lentils or beans rather than remove it, with the nutrients.

Made with brown lentils (Canada), doubled the garlic and cumin for some extra oomph. Removed a cup of water, but was still quite liquidy, would likely start with less water next time and add in more as needed as the lentils cook. Was delicious on rice, and ramen noodles the next day.

Made this recipe tonight, very good. As others have said, I cooked dal in the pressure cooker, on high pressure for 15 minutes, letting it naturally release. The other other place I deviated was that I used only 2 thai chilis (it was spicy enough) and I added a pinch of hing (Asafoetida) to the spices (which I basically doubled).

Delicious! Wasn’t sure how to boil on high heat with the lid on the pot so I ended up cracking the lid and needed a little more water at the end to keep the lentils from sticking. I used Thai red chilies instead of green, Aleppo pepper instead of Kashmiri, and Cretan olive oil instead of ghee. Had a little kick - very nice with jasmine rice.

Delicious! I could eat this dish every day. I used avocado oil, substituted jalapenos (no Thai green chiles around where I live) and doubled the garlic and ginger. I'm going to make the Kachumbari salad to accompany it that someone mentioned in the comments.

It is a good basic recipe, but definitely needs more of all the spices & garlic/ginger.

Double ginger and garlic

Use brown lentils, cook in an instant pot for 10 minutes with 4 cups of water not seven

I like to simmer the lentils/dry beans for an hour or longer until super soft with just a bay leaf, then add salt, spiced vegetables (small cut carrots, bell pepper). Then simmer some more or leave standing for hours before adding ghee mix.

Time permitting, I like to simmer the lentils/mung beans for an hour on low heat with a couple of bay leaves before adding anything else. Then add veggies (small pieces of carrots, bell peppers), spices, garlic, then let simmer on very very low heat for another hour or two.

I used regular red lentils from the grocery store and just kept an eye on it. This was surprisingly delicious and cozy for such an unassuming recipe list!

Oh wow this is SO GOOD. First, be sure you use whole masoor dal - the whole lentil that is brown on the outside, red on the inside. Soaked the lentils for about 4 hours, then filled the pot about 2-3 inches above the lentils, and in 30 minutes it had almost all cooked down. I mashed them a bit with a wooden mathani before adding the masala. I saved it for the next day, and the flavors were outstanding. Don't forget lemon juice and cilantro for serving!

Wow! Delicious

Kachumbar: Diced tomatoes, cucumbers, sliced ?., lemon juice, cilantro, red onion

There seems to be confusion in some of the notes about the type of dal to use. "Whole Masoor Dal" (used here) is unsplit red lentils in their brown seed coat (aka "brown lentils") - longer cook time and retain some shape (photo). "Masoor Dal" is red split lentils separated from the brown seed coat (aka "red lentils"). Split red lentils cook very quickly into a yellow mush - they may well be a fine substitute here but will result in a different dal. Delicious recipe! Spice/texture to taste.

Added extra ginger and garlic. We substituted umeboshi for the tomatoes and left out the peppers.