Easy chickpea curry with yogurt and spinach, a delicious vegetable based curry that is quick to cook. Making it an ideal mid week dinner dish, for those nights when you want to eat meat free.
Easy chickpea curry with a variety of vegetables is a regular dish on my family's dinner table. I probably cook more vegetable curries than I do meat based ones. It does us no harm to have meat free days in our weekly diet.
Vegetables cook quickly, and with the addition of a tin of chickpeas from our store cupboards, we can have a curry on the table in well under an hour!
However, more than anything else, I simply love vegetable based curries, particularly this chickpea curry recipe. This simple curry is packed full of warm spice flavours and cooled with the addition of yogurt.
Easy chickpea and spinach curry is one of those dishes that I've made for years. This particular curry is cooked with yogurt and spinach and whilst I vary it from time to time, the base of the recipe remains the same! This is the version I make most often.
How to make chickpea spinach curry
Recipe ingredients & substitutions
- Chillies - As is the case with most dishes you can adapt the amount of chillies you use. I have used 3 red finger chillies in this recipe, you can add more or less depending on your taste and who's going to be eating it. I you would prefer a chickpea curry with no heat, leave the chillies out altogether.
- Spices - I have used a blend of dried spices that I think work really well in this curry dish. However, if you don't have these spices you can substitute with curry powder instead, it will just taste a bit different as ground curry powders do vary considerably.
- Leafy greens - I have used frozen spinach in this dish as that's what I and my family like to eat. However, I have also used kale, black kale and Swiss chard leaves from my garden on occasion.
- Garden peas - Likewise I sometimes like to add frozen peas to this curry as well as the spinach. Use what you have and enjoy eating yourself.
- Extra vegetables - If you want to bulk up this dish a little, this is easily done. In the past I have added potato, cauliflower (roasted first as this really brings the flavour out), peppers and butternut squash.
- Paneer cheese - I've also added some paneer cheese to this easy chickpea curry as the cheese really takes on the flavours form the curry sauce.
- Vegan chickpea curry - This recipe is really easy to adapt for vegan diners. The only dairy element in this vegetarian curry is the yogurt. You can simply replace the Greek yogurt with some vegan yogurt of a tin of thick coconut milk. Both will work in this easy chickpea curry to provide a richness to this finished dish.
Benefit of using frozen vegetables?
There are certain vegetables that I always have a supply of in my freezer, namely: spinach; peas; broad beans; leeks and sweetcorn. That's not to say I never buy and cook fresh, more that these are vegetables I use a lot of in my cooking and I can't say I notice any difference in them being frozen.
Aside from being more convenient, frozen spinach is quick and ready prepared. For this particular curry I simply removed 5 balls of frozen spinach from the freezer and allowed it to come defrost in the sauce.
By all means use fresh spinach if you would prefer and have that to hand.
How to store chickpea spinach curry?
Make ahead - This easy chickpea curry is a great prep ahead dish. You can prepare it a couple of days beforehand, allow it to cool, cover it and leave it in the fridge. However, I would cook it to the end of recipe step 4. Then when you are ready to serve finish the recipe with spinach and fresh coriander.
In fact, as with most curries, I would say it benefits from being made in advance. Curry always tastes better when it's allowed to sit.
Freeze - This chickpea curry can be frozen really easily. However, one word of caution would be that the vegetables do tend to break down a little when being defrosted.
So, as with the instructions above, I would cook the curry to the end of recipe step 4 and freeze at this stage. Finishing the final steps when you are ready to enjoy the curry.
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Additional recipe suggestions
If you like this recipe then try some of our other great curry recipes:
- Vegetable & Coconut Curry
- Easy Matar Paneer Curry
- Butter Chicken Curry
- Indian Cottage Pie
- Lamb & Spinach Curry
- Leftover Turkey Curry
- Mild Chicken Curry
Spice up your curries with some great tasting chutneys, try my fresh and vibrant Green Chutney, or warm and spicy Date & Tamarind Chutney.
Looking for inspiration for feeding the family mid week, then take a look at my Ultimate Guide to Family Dinners. Full of useful hints, tips and recipes.
Easy Chickpea Curry with Yogurt & Spinach
Ingredients
- 1 large onion (chopped)
- 5 cloves garlic (crushed)
- 3 red finger chillis (sliced)
- 5 cm ginger (in chunks)
- 2 tablespoon sunflower oil
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 3 cardamon pods (bruised)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 300 g thick Greek yogurt
- 400 g tin plum tomatoes
- 400 g tin chickpeas (drained)
- 1 vegetable stock cube
- 200 g frozen spinach
- large handful of coriander leaves (chopped)
Instructions
- Place the onion, garlic, ginger and chillies into a food processor with a little water and blitz to a smooth paste.
- In a large frying pan gently heat the sunflower oil over a medium heat. Add the paste to the frying pan and gently saute the vegetables for 5 minutes taking care to soften but not colour the paste.
- Next add in all the dry spices to the vegetable paste and stir thoroughly to combine. Cook out for a minute so that the dry spices begin to release their aroma, but again take care not to burn the spices.
- Add the creamy Greek yogurt to the spice mix and stir through to form a thick smooth curry paste. next add the tinned tomatoes, the vegetable stock cubs and the drained chickpeas and give everything a good stir. Cook for 10 minutes and if it's looking a little dry add a splash of water to loosen the curry sauce.
- Add the frozen spinach to the curry sauce and cook for a further 5 minutes until the spinach had defrosted and heated through.
- Before serving stir through the chopped coriander. Serve with warm naan breads or flatbreads.
Notes
• Please note that the nutrition information provided above is approximate and meant as a guideline only •
Sisley White says
What a beautiful dish! Chickpea curry is so yummy and I will add this to my list of curries to try at home.
Lesley says
Thank you Sisley, it is easily one of my favourite curries and all the better that it cooks so quick.
Eb Gargano | Easy Peasy Foodie says
YUM! I am a huge fan of curry - and especially chickpeas and spinach in curries, so this is right up my street! Eb 🙂
Lesley says
Thank you Eb, me too and this is a regular mid week dinner for my family.
Midge @ Peachicks' Bakery says
YUM! We love curries in this house! Pinned for later 🙂
Lesley says
Thank you Midge, we are a house of curry fans also, this is a great quick cook, perfect for a busy week night.
Cat says
So comforting and delicious. The perfect midweek vegetarian curry. Curries are some of my favourite vegetarian dishes because they are so easy to pack with lots of flavour which is what this curry has.
Lesley says
Thank you Cat, and I couldn't agree more. I love vegetarian curries, I always have. I make a lot of curries but my family never notice when they don't contain meat which is great as vegetable curries are so quick to cook.
Chloe Edges says
Sounds delicious, I love the texture of curries that start with a blitzed base like this.
Lesley says
Thank you Chloe, the blitzed base paste adds a lovely thickness to the sauce - its also a great time saving technique - particularly mid week!