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Chicken, Carrot, lentil tacos

Chicken, carrot and lentil Taco’s

Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

Filling

  • 2 large carrots grated.
  • 1 cup of brown/black lentils either tinned or pre soaked.
  • 1/2 large brown onion diced.
  • 3 garlic cloves crushed or grated.
  • 250 g organic chicken mince.
  • 1 tsp cumin.
  • 1 1/2 tsp taco seasoning.
  • 1 tsp dried parsley.
  • 1/2 - 1 cup broth/stock.
  • salt and pepper to season.
  • 1/2 Tbsp olive oil.
  • Old el paso original taco shells packet of 12.

Toppings

  • 1/2 cup grated tasty cheese.
  • 12 cherry tomatoes quatered.
  • 1 cup lettuce leaves roughly torn or finely shredded (your call!)
  • sour cream.
  • salsa.

Instructions
 

  • Prepare your filling ingredients.
  • Heat a large skillet or frypan on medium heat, add your oil, onion and garlic. Cook stirring regularly until golden brown.
  • Add mince, herbs and spices and cook for about 5 mins, breaking up the mince with your spoon. Once the mince is lightly browned, add the carrot, lentils and half of the broth, simmer on low-medium for around 10 minutes to really soften up the carrots. Adding more broth when necessary.
  • While your filling mixture is cooking, prepare your topping ingredients and start warming up your taco shells, as per the packet instructions.
  • Taste the filling mixture and season if needed.
  • Assemble your taco’s! This is the fun part. You can either bring everything to the table and let people help themselves, or you can dish them up, readily made for each person. To be honest, I prefer dishing them up for everyone because then I know how much of each ingredient to use and i’m not likely to run out of anything during assembly.
  • My preferred layering method is: chicken mixture, cheese, tomato, salsa, sour cream and lettuce on top to hold it all in place!
  • Serve immediately.

Notes

My husband prefers soft taco’s, so for him I use either corn tortillas or homemade spelt flour tortillas instead of taco shells.
I actually love to serve mine up over a large pile of greens tossed through with some olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Then I simply add a dollop of sour cream, salsa and guacamole on top and if I feel like a crunch, I might add a few corn chips on the side. This is certainly substantially lighter in calories bit still full of flavour and I find it very satisfying.
Pre soaking lentils, If you would like to soak your own lentils, remember to do this the night before you’re going to cook these. About 1/3 cup of dry lentils will yield 1 cup once soaked. Honestly, when I go to the effort of soaking or pressure cooking legumes I like to do large batches and then store them in containers in the freezer, ready to pull out for the next time I’m going to need them.
Simply rinse your lentils, top with water covering them at least a couple of inches and add a little lemon juice. Soak them overnight, rinse them the following morning, drain and store in a container for use that evening.