Guiso de Lentejas is the Uruguayan lentil stew — brown lentils simmered with chorizo, bacon, onion, garlic, tomato, carrot, and potato into a thick, hearty one-pot meal. It is the winter weekday dish of every Uruguayan home, cheap, filling, and the kind of thing that tastes even better reheated the next day.
Guiso de Lentejas is the Spanish stew (guiso) tradition applied to the Uruguayan larder. Lentils came to the River Plate with Spanish colonization, and the Uruguayan version always includes chorizo and panceta (bacon) — the country's abundant pork products. The dish is the everyday winter meal: every household has its version, every bodegón (traditional tavern) serves it on Mondays. It is the dish of frugal abundance — a handful of lentils and a few sausages feed a family.
A bowl of thick, dark-brown stew, the lentils soft but holding shape, the broth orange with chorizo fat and tomato. Chunks of potato and carrot, slices of sausage. Eat it with bread, mop the bowl. It is the warmest, most filling thing in the Uruguayan winter.
The lentils must be soaked (or use quick-cooking brown lentils) and simmered gently — boiling makes them mushy. The chorizo and panceta are browned first to render their fat, which becomes the flavor base; the vegetables are sweated in that fat (sofrito). The starch from the lentils and potato thickens the broth naturally — no flour needed. The dish is best made a day ahead and reheated, so the flavors marry.
Variations
Some add rice; some use morcilla (blood sausage); some add hard-boiled egg; some include pumpkin.
On the Palate
Where Guiso de Lentejas sits in the Uruguayan flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
8 steps · 30 min active + 1 hour waiting
- 1480 min
Soak 400 g brown lentils overnight; drain.
- 25 min
In a large pot, render 150 g diced panceta (bacon) with 2 sliced chorizos in their own fat 5 minutes.
Watch outRender the panceta and chorizo until the fat runs and coats the pot — that spiced fat is the flavor base for everything after.
- 36 min
Add 2 diced onions and 4 minced garlic cloves; soften 6 minutes.
- 43 min
Add 2 diced carrots and 2 diced potatoes; cook 3 minutes.
- 55 min
Add 400 g diced tomatoes (or 1 can); cook 5 minutes.
- 63 min
Add the lentils, 2 bay leaves, and water to cover by 3 cm.
- 750 min
Simmer covered 50 minutes until lentils are tender and the stew is thick.
Watch outSimmer at a lazy bubble, never a hard boil — boiled hard the lentils burst to mush; you want them tender but still whole.
- 85 min
Season with salt; rest 5 minutes; serve with bread.
