I’ve been craving for a simple vegetarian dinner that I could just whip up in the matter of 30 minutes, and so this very easy chickpea vegetable curry recipe with quinoa was born. Let not the simplicity of this dish fool you, though: it is still a very filling veggie dish, and it rightfully deserves to be called a main course. You won’t go hungry after enjoying curry flavors, chickpeas, mushrooms, and spinach in a creamy coconut broth, on top of protein-rich quinoa.
Chickpea and vegetable curry with quinoa
Prep time: 30 minutes
Makes 6 servings
Ingredients:
- 1 can coconut milk
- 1 can chick peas
- 2 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon red curry paste
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon or more brown sugar
- 1 quarter lemon squeezed or more
- 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 tablespoon basil
- 1 bunch spinach, cleaned
- 4 green onions, chopped
- 2 cups sliced mushrooms
- salt to taste
- 1 cup quinoa
- 4 cups water
1) Heat coconut milk in a large pan until it boils and reduce heat to simmer. Add next 7 ingredients to the coconut milk: chickpeas, red curry paste, tomato paste, brown sugar, lemon juice, chili powder, basil. Mix everything together until even consistency.
2) Add spinach, chopped green onions and sliced mushrooms to the coconut milk mixture, bring to boil, reduce to simmer. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes, until mushrooms are cooked, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3) In a separate pan, combine 4 cups of water and 1 cup of quinoa. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook until all liquid is absorbed and quinoa is cooked and fluffy.
Note: If you like your curry a bit runny, add a little bit of water or milk in the end to reach the desired consistency. If reheating the next day, you will likely have to add a touch of water or milk to the curry as it will thicken overnight in the refrigerator.
To serve, place a scoop of quinoa into the middle of each plate. Top with chickpea curry.
Chickpeas
Green onions
Mixing in all ingredients for chickpea curry sauce
Adding red curry paste to chickpeas and coconut milk
Cooking quinoa
Julia: I am drooling just thinking about the creaminess and aroma of this curry. It looks fantastic!
Some of my favorite veggies and chickpeas in a creamy coconut broth?? Sounds amazing! I’m still not sold on quinoa but with something like this on top maybe I’ll come around : )
Love, love, love the ingredients in this! And I’ve become an absoulte fanatic about cooking with quinoa. It turns out great everytime. Unlike rice, which I have a habit of turning to mush.
Delia Smith has the best method for cooking rice. My Mum’s got a cook book of hers from way back. Its the only recipe I’ve ever used cos it works every time. Use twice as much boiling water as you have rice, put a lid on it and simmer for about 10 mins, until the water has been absorbed (depends if you’re cooking long grain or basmati). This is white rice. Brown rice I’m not so confident with. The Delia recipe can be found
here
Hey, that pan looks familiar! I use the same one for my quinoa
.
The smell of curry makes me feel at home for some reason… The only thing is it makes everything I’m wearing smell like it for about a day too. What kind of curry paste are you using? Where might we find some? Looks great Julia!
This is certainly a vegetarian dish I look forward to eating! I love every single ingredient in this recipe. Except for the mushroom, I even have everything in my pantry and fridge right now.
Thanks for this recipe Julia, the top image is awesome, amazing presentation. I’m gonna try this today, bet my plate doesn’t look anywhere as neat as yours haha. Quinoa will be a first for me so looking forward to trying it. I might leave out the sugar though as we’re on a pretty strict diet. Will the dish be greatly affected if I do this?
Mine didn’t turn out as pretty as yours – I uploaded a pic to the blog. It may not have been as aesthetically pleasing, but by golly did it taste good! Thanks again for the awesome recipe. I had great fun making this.
Well, I just checked your blog post with your photo – yours came out exactly like mine did! It looks great. I like how runny it is on your photo, which is, I forgot, what I did to mine, too, after I took the photos.
I add sugar to compensate for sourness and tartness of tomato paste and lemon juice, but if you’re on no-sugar diet, omitting it won’t affect the flavor that much.
Love this idea of using red curry with chickpeas (my favorite bean).
Yes, I love chickpeas a lot and plan to do more recipes with them.