We’ve been on an Indian food kick recently with our decision to eat as much vegan as possible. Indian food is really easy to make vegan because only a few recipes use cream or butter. The substitutions are simple. You can use oil and coconut cream/milk if needed. My husband’s favorite healthy dish I make is the sautéed spicy greens. This chana masala with sautéed greens is a great combo dish to pack the veggies.
While it goes well on the side of most mains, we’ve found it goes great with Indian dishes based with chickpeas, lentils, or beans. Chana masala, or curried chickpeas, mixes so well with the sautéed greens. Since discovering this, we’ve easily consumed a whole bag of dried chickpeas in the last month on this dish alone.
Cooking Indian Style Chickpeas
Chickpeas are great, and dried are even better because they’re much cheaper. This dish I used a mix of regular chickpeas and the black chickpeas. These are not sold in cans to my knowledge so you’d have to get them at an Indian or Asian market. They’re similar, but smaller and a bit firmer in texture.
Chana masala is very similar to most other Indian dishes, meaning the base ingredients are onion, tomato, garam masala, cumin, coriander, ginger, garlic, and turmeric. Most of the dishes I’ve made use these standard ingredients along with a few additional ingredients. In this case, chickpeas, cinnamon, bay leaves, and mustard seeds are the additional ingredients.
Why You’ll Love Chana Masala with Sautéed Greens.
Indian chickpeas (chana masala) are vegan friendly and high protein. The side of sautéed greens packs a serving or two of green vegetables. Not only is it high in protein, but fiber, and iron as well. It’s also quite easy to throw together. Measure out the spices prior to starting and put into a small bowl. Cut up your tomato and onion and you’ll be ready to roll. This whole dish takes me about 30 minutes to make, which is also about the time it takes to make rice.
Chana Masala (Curried Chickpeas) with Sautéed Greens
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cans chickpeas, drained
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 tomatoes, chopped
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 tsp ginger paste
- 2 tsp garam masala (or sub curry powder if you don’t have this)
- ¾ tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp coriander cumin powder
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 ½ tbsp tomato paste
- ¼ cup water
Instructions
- Cut vegetables and measure out your spices (no seeds), and set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a pan.
- Add cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and bay leaves. Simmer in the hot oil for about 1 minute.
- Add the onion and cook until it’s translucent. About 5 minutes.
- Add the ginger and garlic. Cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
- Pour tomatoes, tomato paste, spices, and water in. Mix well.
- Mix in chickpeas, and cook for about 15 minutes on medium-low heat.
Sautéed Greens
- To make sauteed greens, see the recipe here.
Nutrition
Let me know what you think of this in the comments below.
-Cassie 🙂