You will find no brighter tasting or nutritious French lentil salad than this one. And it’s easy and fast to make. The parsley is affordable and packed with Vitamins A, C, and K, in addition to folate, iron and calcium. And onions are one of the world’s healthiest foods–check out our post on Why We Eat Onions and Other Alliums.

For this recipe, soak the chopped red onion in white wine vinegar for 20 minutes, while simmering the lentils just long enough to be cooked yet retaining their near-crunchy firmness for texture, about 12 minutes. Soaking the onions in vinegar sets the color and removes some of the bite. Chop the parsley and dice tomatoes. Add crumbled feta, olive oil and salt to taste. That’s it!  The tomato should be added the day you are eating the salad.

Directions:

Dice the red onion and soak in vinegar while the lentils cook.

Give parsley a rough chop and dice tomatoes.About a minute before the lentils reach their desired consistency (11-12 minutes) remove and drain and then add the vinegar and onions which will help cool the lentils down and stop the cooking process.

Then add the parsley to the mix along with the crumbled feta, and finally the diced tomatoes. Pour in a bit of olive oil, less than a 1/4 cup for starters, and adjust upward until you reach the desired balance. Salt to taste, and gently toss.

If you are not going to eat the entire salad the day you make it, reserve some uncut tomato to be added at a later point. The salad keeps well for several days but the tomatoes don’t hold up as well so add them the day you plan on eating.