Lentil Loaf with Cranberry and Orange Sauce

This Vegan Lentil loaf is moist and delicious, with all the flavours of Christmas. You can either bake it in a loaf pan or make them into balls.  Either way, you’ll need a food processor for this recipe.

 

Lentil Loaf

½ cup water

¼ cup ground flaxseed

2 Tbsp canola oil

1 small onion, diced

1 medium carrot, scrubbed and diced

1 celery stack, diced

6 mushrooms, diced

1 ½ tsp ground sage

¼ tsp table salt

¼ tsp freshly cracked pepper

½ cup walnuts

½ cup fresh or frozen cranberries

½ cup large flake oats – see sidebar

1 – 540 mL/19 fl. Oz. can lentils, rinsed and drained

1 Tbsp lower sodium soy sauce or lite tamari – see sidebar

Cranberry Orange Sauce

½ cup fresh or frozen cranberries

1 clementine, unpeeled, diced to equal ½ cup

3 Tbsp white granulated sugar

¼ cup water

 

  1. In a small bowl or a glass measuring cup whisk together the water and ground flaxseed, set aside.
  2. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add oil, onion, carrot, celery and mushrooms. Sauté for about 4-6 minutes or until they are partially cooked without becoming overly soft. Add ground sage, salt, and pepper, stir in well and remove from the heat.
  3. Make sure the oven rack is in the middle of the oven ( if you are making these into balls make sure and the second one is just below.) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a loaf pan or two large, rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
  4. In a food processor, gently pulse the cranberries until they are finely chopped. Tip into a large bowl. Add walnuts to the food processor and gently pulse them until they are still looking like walnuts and aren’t a paste, you aren’t making walnut butter. Add them to the cranberries. Add rolled oats and lentils to the food processor and pulse gently, once again just a note – you don’t want to make a paste, they should still look like oats and lentil just finely chopped. Tip into the large bowl. Stir well.
  5. Tip the cooked vegetables into the food processor and gently pulse until the they are more finely chopped, but not a mushy mess. Add to the bowl. Stir in well.
  6. Add the soy sauce or tamari to the water flaxseed mixture and whisk well. Pour into the vegetable/lentil mixture and mix really well.
  7. for the loaf: tip into prepared pan and smooth down. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
  8. For the balls: Scoop a heaping 1 Tbsp amounts of the lentil mixture onto the prepared pans. You should get between 40-42 lentil balls. Bake for 15 minutes and then reverse the pans: bringing the bottom one to the top rack and vice versa. Bake for another 15-20 minutes or until firm without being dried out.
  9. Meanwhile make the sauce: in a small saucepan mix together the cranberries, orange, sugar, and water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to medium low, and stir occasionally until the cranberries have burst and the mixture is fairly thick. This takes about 10-15 minutes depending on the size of your saucepan. Remove from heat and let cool.
  10. OR make the sauce up to three days in advance and store in the fridge, warm up before serving over the lentil loaf or balls.
  11. For the lentil loaf: when its ready, take out of the oven and let set for 5 minutes. Using the hang over of parchment paper lift it out of the pan. Slice into 8-10 slices, top with the Cranberry Orange Sauce and serve.
  12. For the balls: place them on a serving plate, spoon a dob of the cranberry orange sauce on top and serve.

Makes 8-10 servings Or Makes 40-42 balls

Professional Home Economist tip

To make this GF: choose GF oats and a GF soy sauce. Tamari is naturally GF.

To watch the video go to my Facebook Fan Page mairlyn.smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 thoughts on “Lentil Loaf with Cranberry and Orange Sauce”

  1. I made this on Christmas Day for myself, I had been saving the recipe since I saw your FB live making it. I stopped eating meat a few years ago and used to make my Mother’s tourtiere every Christmas and meatballs she made for Christmas Eve so this recipe was a nice festive treat for me. My children are all over the world now and the pandemic is not helping with travel so the recipe was just for me. It was delicious, I did add a little chili sauce to the cranberry orange sauce, reminiscent of my Mom’s meatball sauce. I love your posts, thank-you.

    1. The pandemic has really hit us too, our sons lives in anopther country and we haven’t seen him since June 2020.
      i’m glad you loved the recipe.
      Stay safe.
      Peace, love and fibre,
      Mairlyn

  2. This looks delicious, Mairlyn! Will leftovers freeze well? (I live alone)

    I love anything with cranberries. Your muffin recipe with both fresh/frozen and dried cranberries is my absolute favourite! I have a very large cookbook collection, but yours are the ones I use most often.

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