Prep time: 25 minutes (end to end)

Clean up time: 5 minutes

Serves: 2-4

Stored in fridge 4-5 days

Yo Dudes! I love The Happy Pear recipes. All the ones I have tried are simple, delicious, and easy to recreate. This Chickpea Curry is a great example. It uses common ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen, especially if you are becoming more plant-based! And it is full of amazing flavours and nourishment. Although it’s not quite a ‘5 minute dinner’, especially for someone like me that is slow in the kitchen and likes to clean as I go, it is still quick to put together with minimal clean up. I make a few changes to the recipe now that I’ve made it a few times, mainly to bulk it up a bit so it lasts for more than one meal. I hope you enjoy this simple, fulfilling, nourishing meal as much as we do.

Chickpea Curry - 5 Minute Dinner

Here’s another killer recipe from our 5 Minute Dinner series! This zingy curry is super satisfying and full of veggie goodness. Enjoy dudes!

INGREDIENTS

½ red onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
I clove of garlic
½ thumb-sized piece of ginger
½ a red chili (if you like it spicy like Dave, leave the seeds in!)
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground paprika
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 400g tin coconut milk
1 400g tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
small bunch of coriander
zest of ½ lime
juice of ½ lime
1 avocado

INSTRUCTIONS

-Heat the oil on a medium heat.

-Thinly slice the onion and garlic and add to the pan.

-Grate the ginger into the pan. No need to remove the skin!

-Thinly slice the chilli and add to the pan.

-Add the spices and cook for 30 seconds.

-Add the chopped tomatoes, coconut milk and chickpeas.

-Add the salt and pepper.

-Chop the coriander and add to the pan along with the lime zest.

-Add the lime juice, season to taste and serve with avocado and the grain of your choice. Lovely!

Ingredient Tips:

-I use a whole white onion instead of 1/2 a red onion, only because that’s usually all we have in the pantry. The red onion would probably add to the rich flavours of the curry even more.

-I have no tolerance for spice since I was pregnant with Jensen. We lived in Asia for a couple of years and I developed a taste for spicy food, but Jensen had other ideas. I couldn’t eat anything spicy when pregnant and he didn’t like it when I was nursing, and well I’m still nursing! So I leave out the red chili and only use half the amount of spices indicated except for the ground coriander. It still has a lovely flavour but it is a lot more mild this way (also more toddler friendly). If you are a curry fan then using the full amounts creates a lovely, rich, spicy curry.

-I use two cans of chopped tomatoes to bulk out the recipe a bit. This way it will last for two medium sized meals for two adults and tastes even better the second night.

-When making the recipe for the breakdown the local supermarket didn’t have any fresh coriander so I used basil. This changed the flavour a little but the curry taste was still predominant. I’ve made it with fresh coriander and it definitely lifts the flavour more than the basil did, especially if added just before serving. Both were still delicious.

-Lime isn’t in season in New Zealand and is ridiculously expensive ($25.99 a kilo!), so I used lemon off a friends tree. Again the lemon flavour was tasty but when making it with lime it compliments the curry seasoning a bit more. I think we need to plant a lime tree!

-I also added some kale from our garden to up the fresh ingredient content, and bulk up the recipe a bit more. Adding this just at the end before serving means the kale won’t be over cooked and soggy.

-We usually have this dish over black rice, which has quite a strong taste and compliments the curry flavours.

Preparation & Clean Up Tips:

Although advertised as a ‘5 minute’ dinner, it’s not really if there is only one of you in the kitchen and you are slow at chopping like me! But the recipe doesn’t take that much time to prepare and is a great quick week night dinner. I like to serve this over black rice which does take 45 minutes to cook. I put the rice on first, prep and cook the curry, then let it simmer until the rice is done so the flavours can infuse a bit more before serving.

To cook black rice, rinse it first and then add it to a pot with double the amount of water (I usually use 1.5 cups rice, 3 cups of water). Bring to the boil and then simmer for 25 minutes with the lid on. Let stand for another 10 minutes and the rice should be fluffy with no water left in the pot. Either serve the curry over the rice or mix it into the curry to make a thicker sauce.

Not much clean up is required with this recipe. We put the leftovers back into the fridge in the pot we cook it in, and other than that it’s rinsing a few cans and washing a chopping board. Clean up can also be done while the rice finishes cooking so you can sit down and enjoy dinner without a huge mess in the kitchen (something I love!). I also recently brought a microplane and it is so much easier to clean up and use than a box grater. They are used to zest citrus, finely grate things like ginger and can be picked up from the supermarket for only a few dollars. If you plan to start cooking a bit more I highly recommend getting one, it will make life and cleanup just that little bit easier.

Nourishment:

Although full of simple ingredients from the pantry this curry is really nourishing. Chickpeas are incredibly high in fibre and are great for digestive function. They are also full of antioxidants and phytonutrients, as well as vitamins and minerals such as folate, iron, and zinc. And of course they are a great source of protein! This page is a great resource and even has info about growing chickpeas! I think I need to get Jase to try that. Chickpeas coupled with tomatoes and coconut milk, which are also both full of antioxidants and vitamins, make this meal overloaded with delicious nourishment.

The Happy Pear

The Happy Pear is run by twin brothers David and Stephen Flynn who seem to have never ending energy and excitement about plant-based food and living. They have cook books, a cafe, and multiple plant-based product lines, and their YouTube channel is full of great free content and recipes. I love their Facebook and Instagram feeds that provide continual inspiration and enthusiasm for all things plant-based, yo dudes!