Took me 3 tries to figure out lentils were the cheap protein I needed

I spent way too long buying ground beef for my chili even though it was eating up my grocery budget. Finally tried cooking with brown lentils from the bulk bin at my local HEB in Austin and it cut my chili cost by about 60%. Took roughly 4 months of me wondering why my meals were so expensive before I just looked at the price per pound difference. Anybody else have a cheap ingredient they were sleeping on for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

william9171mo ago

yo lentils are a game changer, threw em in my chili last week and barely noticed the swap

linda_butler281mo ago

@william917 I gotta disagree with you there, I tried the same thing and the texture threw me off completely. Lentils get mushy in a way that beans don't, and it made my chili feel more like a weird stew. If you really didn't notice, you might have used too few or cooked them way down.