AI-Generated Pineapple Lentil Curry

Written 2025-05-17

I'm on something of a health kick and want to eat more lentils. I'm also on something of a piña colada kick and want to eat more pineapple and coconut. I looked up some recipes for pineapple lentil curries, but they were all fairly complicated, and I'm fairly lazy! So, I asked Grok: "Give me a simple recipe for a pineapple lentil curry that uses curry powder" (I didn't want to have to mix the spices myself). Here's what I got, and how it turned out! Recipe is (incidentally) vegan, and makes at least 6 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (237 ml) dried red lentils, rinsed;
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) olive oil;
• 1 onion, diced;
• 2 cloves garlic, minced;
• 1 tbsp curry powder;
• 1 can (14 oz/398 ml) diced tomatoes;
• 1 can pineapple chunks, drained;
• 1 can coconut milk;
• 2 cups vegetable broth;
• salt and pepper, to taste; and,
• cooked rice, for serving.

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Sauté about 5 minutes, until soft.
2. Stir in curry powder and cook for about 1 minute, until fragrant.
3. Add lentils, tomatoes, pineapple, coconut milk, and broth. Stir well.
4. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lentils are soft.
5. Season with salt and pepper. Adjust consistency with more broth if needed.
6. Serve over rice.

Review

Grok alleged that this recipe makes 4 servings, but it makes much more than that. I put 6 at the top of the page as a conservative estimate, but I could see getting 8-10 servings out of this depending on how big they are. I plan to use this for meal prepping!

The ingredients came in at roughly $20 CAD at Sobey's, but I could see that coming down a few bucks if I had gone to Walmart instead. Also, in my case, there were plenty of lentils, garlic, diced tomatoes, and curry powder left over after making the first batch. Still, at at least 6 servings, that's a maximum of $3.33 per serving – very economical, especially for something fairly healthy! That doesn't include the rice, but rice is also very cheap.

The curry turned out well, although I found that the curry flavour was fairly weak and the texture wasn't as thick as I would have wanted it. Next time, I'll add another tablespoon of curry powder and maybe another half-cup of lentils to remedy this. It was still very good, and I'll definitely be making it again!