This Lentil and Chickpea Curry recipe is healthy, easy, vegan, dairy, and gluten-free. It's also packed with Fairtrade ingredients and can be cooked from storecupboard ingredients so is a great standby.
Stir in the curry paste or curry powder and fry for 1 minute.. Keep stirring.
3 tablespoon korma curry paste
Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then add with the lentils, coconut milk and chopped tomatoes. Bring to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes until the lentils are soft, stirring occasionally. Add a little water if necessary.
400 g chickpeas, 250 g red lentils, 400 g coconut milk, 400 g chopped tomatoes
Stir the spinach and lemon juice through the curry and serve with the rice.
200 g spinach, 1 lemons
Notes
The Nutritional values shown for this recipe are just for the curry and exclude any side dishes such as rice or naan bread.
Substitutions
Lentils- red lentils work best as they have the shortest cooking time. However, you could use green or brown lentils and let the curry simmer for longer. Dried lentils will take on the flavour of the curry when cooked.
Chickpeas - presoaked chickpeas are the easiest to use in this recipe. However, if you have dried chickpeas, you can use these. Dried chickpeas need to be soaked before adding them to a recipe. Dried chickpeas triple in size when cooked, so for this recipe, you will need about 90g of dried chickpeas.
Lemons -Use fresh lemons where possible, but substitute bottled lemon juice if you need to.
Coconut Milk -Use full fat or light coconut milk.
Curry Paste - Curry paste is easier to use than curry powder. However, you can use curry powder instead. As a general rule, use 1 teaspoon of curry powder for every tablespoon of curry paste in the recipe. All curry powders are different strengths so you might want to start with a smaller amount and add more if you need to.
How to Serve
Serve this chickpea and lentil curry with rice or naan bread or both. The most common rice to serve with curry is basmati rice. You could also use more fragrant rice such as Jasmine rice. For a homemade 'Naan' bread, you might like to try my simple3 Ingredient Flatbread recipe. Made with just 3 ingredients, this is a very simple bread you can make at home and it only takes 10 minutes.
Storage
This curry can be stored in the fridge for 2-3 days. It can also be frozen and is best used within 3 months.