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I've tried several times to cook red lentils and they keep coming out very translucent. is the texture going to be way different then the brown and green?

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Recorded

This event was on March 12, 2024

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Cat Bal

I've tried several times to cook red lentils and they keep coming out very translucent. is the texture going to be way different then the brown and green?

Answer

The textures will probably come out different on both brown and green lentils and black lentils and red lentils. They all definitely, um, you know, definitely distinct kind of textures to each one of those. Um, coming up, translucent is interesting, um, and I'm just guessing there's might be the amount of water that is, uh, put into those as well too. But, um, yeah, so the textures on each one of those, the red lentils, um, versus green and brown are going to come out a little bit different. And part of that's just a little experimentation to see what kind, um, or which ones you're using. Because here's the kicker is each brand on each farm, you know, or variety, I guess is probably the best way to put that. Each variety might have a little bit of a different texture to it as well. So, um, just a little bit of experimentation with that. And you'll see the textures will be different, but you'll still get wonderful flavors out of those too.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.