Lentils and Olive Oil (For Bread Dipping)

4.2/5 - (6 votes)
lentil olive oil dip
Easy, and tasty!

This is one of the ideas we brought back from our recent trip to NYC: a dipping sauce of lentils and olive oil. On one of our nights out, we stopped at Mercato, a small Italian restaurant just down the street from where we were staying that specializes in southern Italian dishes. Here, instead of serving bread with olive oil and garlic, or olive oil and balsamic vinegar, they served bread with a small dish of lentils and olive oil. We loved it and vowed to make it once we returned home.

We didn’t base this on any recipe, but it seemed so simple that we figured we could make up a batch the next time we had lentils. We’d simply reserve a quarter-cup of the cooked lentils and have at it. If you already know how to make lentils, make up a batch the way you like them; otherwise, we’ll show you how we scratch out lentils.

Print Recipe
5 from 2 votes

Lentils and Olive Oil (For Dipping Bread)

Servings: 5 ounces dip (plus about 3/4 cup cooked lentils)
Author: Shawn

Ingredients

For the lentils

  • 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 Tbs minced onion
  • 1 small clove garlic minced
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup dried lentils rinsed and drained
  • 1 tsp white wine vinegar

For the dip

  • 1/4 cup cooked lentils above
  • 2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

For the lentils

  • Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender.
  • Add lentils and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until tender, about 40 minutes. Stir in vinegar.

For the dip

  • Combine lentils and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Ingredient discussion:

rinsing lentils
We wish we had a slightly bigger strainer to rinse lentils, but we make it work.

Use good extra-virgin olive oil, preferably one with a nice fruity flavor (that’s what they seemed to use at Mercato), and, remember, many extra-virgin olive oils are not extra-virgin. Even some of the big names can be suspect. The best way of telling is to taste it. It should have flavor. A lot of flavor. Perhaps enough flavor to make you cough; if it tastes mild and nearly flavorless, it’s not extra-virgin olive oil. For the lentils, we knew it’d be nearly impossible to make just a quarter-cup of cooked lentils, so we made about a cup’s worth and had them with barley for lunch, saving just enough for our dinnertime dip.

Procedure in detail:

Again, if you already have a great way of cooking lentils, by all means, we aren’t going to stop you. Go ahead and make them the way you like.

For the lentils:
onion and garlic
You want finely minced onion and garlic, not big honking pieces.

Cook onions and garlic. Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook until tender, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally so the alliums don’t stick or burn.

Add lentils. Add the rinsed lentils along with a cup of water and bring to a boil.

simmering lentils
We find that the time to cook lentils is all over the map: sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes 40.

Cover and simmer. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the lentils, and cook until tender, about 40 minutes. Start checking after about 20 minutes, because some lentils will cook faster than others.

adding vinegar
A bit of vinegar goes a long way to brighten up the flavor of legumes.

Taste and season. Stir in vinegar. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

For the dip:
You could measure the olive oil, but why? Just eyeball the amount and you’ll be good.

Combine. Stir together 1/4 cup of the cooked lentils and the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. The oil will stay on top, so don’t try to mix it in completely. It won’t work.

Taste and adjust. The best way to adjust your seasonings is to dip a small piece of bread into the mixture and taste it. Add a bit of salt and pepper, if needed.

That’s it. It is really an easy dip, isn’t it? Simply a few tasty ingredients combined in a bowl, nothing more. As with many Italian dishes, it’s all about letting the ingredients shine, not necessarily about extensive preparation and work. We just love having something different, like this, for dipping our bread. An easy five.

Worth the trouble?

13 Replies to “Lentils and Olive Oil (For Bread Dipping)”

  1. I am so excited to try this!!! I was looking for a lentil olive oil bread dip because we enjoy one at our favorite Italian restaurant in NYC, and I wanted to recreate it. Imagine my delight when I found you’d created a recipe based on the exact one from the very restaurant I was looking for! We always make a stop in Mercato. Thank you!

      1. Mercato was my favorite NY restaurant. I ate there every day , I used to g to NY often on biz and stayed at the Element down the block. I tried to Google it last year, but saw no listing for it. Do you know if they closed due to covid?
        suzanne cruise

  2. The purity, simplicity, of this is beautiful. I have huge admiration for your promotion of these qualities. More and more I am discovering that the path to happiness lies in starting with a determination to use as few ingredients as possible, tasting as you go. Your recipe is a case in point. Sea salt and a really good olive oil are all you need to make a bowl of lentils sing. Dijon mustard would be my third ingredient, but even that could be dispensed with. Thank you so much for the inspiration.

    1. I agree completely. I find that starting with the best quality and freshest ingredients we can find (balanced against personal budget, of course) produces the best results. And most times, less is indeed more.
      Thanks for your kind words,
      Shawn

  3. OMG I’m so excited I found this blog! I went to Mercato a few weeks ago and fell in love with the bread dip! I didnt even know I liked lentils lol. I asked the waiter for the ingredients but wasnt sure exactly how to combine it all together (especially since i’ve never made lentils before!) Literally trying your recipe right now! I’ll let you know how it goes! 😀

  4. My wife and I used to live down the street from Mercato. I always loved the lentil dipping sauce and bread and have been recently talking about how much I want that recipe, as I have had this nowhere else and we are trying to go more plant based. So when I google, your recipe came up first.

    Small world.

    Thanks for sharing.

  5. 5 stars
    Like Sean’s comment here, I used to live in NY just one block from Mercato. Suddenly got a craving for this dip, Googled it, and here we go – a little community of ex-locals! Now, if you could just perfect the recipe for the taramosalata from the International Grocer across 9th Ave… 😉

  6. Hi
    I can’t believe I found this. I was there today for lunch….on 39th st…and fell in love with the same thing! Our server said cook the lentils as usual. Be sure they are very dry and mix in capers that have been rinsed. Then good olive oil. I can’t wait to make it and am so happy I found other Mercato fans!

    1. Capers huh. Well, I made this up based on my memory and obviously I missed that. Next time I’ll be sure to add about a tablespoon of them finely minced. Thanks for the information.
      All the best,
      Shawn

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