This simple, tasty and easy Vegetable Curry with chickpeas and coconut milk is a weeknight, one-pot favorite that cooks up in under 30 minutes. Chickpeas are simmered with veggies like potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots, and flavored with spices like cardamom and curry powder. Coconut milk adds a creamy and delicious finishing touch. Serve this curry over a bed of rice or quinoa. A vegan, gluten-free, soy-free and nut-free recipe.
Wait until you taste this delicious and truly easy Vegetable Curry with Chickpeas. I promise you'll be making it again and again.
I dreamed up this easy curry the other day with just half an hour to get dinner on the table. That's right-- that's just how long it takes to make this, and if your knife skills are better than mine (which they probably are), it will take you even less.
Try it today, and come back and tell me all about it!
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What we love about this curry
- It's incredibly flavorful with so many textures.
- It's gorgeous to look at, but it's also incredibly healthy. Look at that rainbow of colors from fresh, delicious veggies. And those plump, tasty chickpeas. I can eat this curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- It's a one-pot dish. And by that I mean you make it in one pot, of course, but you will also find all the nutrition you need in the single pot. There are legumes here and veggies, so all you need to make this a complete meal is brown rice or quinoa.
- There are so many addictive flavors in here, like the spices in the curry powder and the cardamom. That said, as someone who is Indian born and cooks so much Indian food, I will declare at the outset that this is not by any means a traditional recipe from that country. Curry powder, for one, is more identified with British Indian cuisine that it is with Indian cuisine. But the spices in the curry powder and the overall flavor? Indian, without a doubt!
- It's easily adaptable to anything you have on hand, from the veggies to the legumes.
- This is a very child-friendly recipe too, vibrant with the spices, yet mellow enough with the coconut cream. The crisp carrots along with the al dente green peppers make for a happy mouthful.
Tips for making the perfect vegetable curry:
- Add cubes of tofu or tempeh to this veg curry for an extra protein boost.
- The vegetables can be any kind, really, as long as they are veggies that cook fairly quickly. I used carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, green peppers and green beans. In the end I stirred in some scallions because their raw, sharp bite is incredible in the creamy curry. Here are some other veggies you can use:
- Cauliflower
- Broccoli
- Any squash -- summer or winter -- like butternut or acorn squash, zucchini or yellow squash, or pumpkin.
- Eggplant
- Mushrooms
- Peas
- Greens like spinach, chard or watercress.
- Here's a secret that will cut cooking time down even more: use frozen vegetables. Frozen veggies will do wonderfully, and imagine how easy your life will be if all that dinner involves is chopping up an onion, crushing some garlic, and then opening a bag of frozen veggies, a can of chickpeas, and another of coconut milk. I would use a bag of stir fry veggies or peas and carrots, or chopped spinach--you get the idea?
- Sub the curry powder with garam masala, if that's what you have. Or stir in a couple of tablespoons of Thai curry paste, red or yellow, for the flavor base (in that case, you probably will need less cayenne). You see just how adaptable this recipe is?
- After adding the coconut milk, don't let the curry boil. Doing so won't ruin your dish, but it will, to some extent, ruin the creamy look because the coconut milk will separate. You can still eat the curry, and its taste won't be altered, it just won't look as awesome.
What to serve with this mix veg curry
- Brown rice or white basmati rice
- Quinoa
- Jeera Rice/Cumin Rice
- Carrot Rice
I wouldn't serve it with an Indian bread of any kind, like a naan, because a veg curry with coconut milk is more like a stew and naans need something thicker and spicier to hold on to because they're densely textured. If you absolutely want to eat it with bread, serve it with some French or Italian bread which has a crumb that's porous enough to absorb the curry and will do more justice to it.
Ingredients
- Onion
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Vegetables (I used a mix of sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrots, green bell peppers and green beans
- Scallions
- Coconut oil
- Green cardamom
- Turmeric
- Curry powder
- Cayenne
- Coconut milk
- Chickpeas
- Lemon
- Cilantro
- Vegetable stock (or water)
Vegetable Curry recipe
This simple, tasty and easy Vegetable Curry with chickpeas and coconut milk is a weeknight, one-pot favorite that cooks up in under 30 minutes. Chickpeas are simmered with veggies like potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots, and flavored with spices like cardamom and curry powder. Coconut milk adds a creamy and delicious finishing touch. A vegan, gluten-free, soy-free and nut-free recipe.
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Servings: 8 servings
Calories: 254kcal
Equipment
- Large saucepan or wok
Ingredients
- 1 tsp coconut oil
- 4 pods green cardamom (slightly crushed)
- 1 medium onion diced
- ½ tsp turmeric
- ½ to 1 tsp cayenne (use more or less based on your preference)
- 4 cloves garlic (minced or crushed into a paste)
- 1 tsp ginger (crushed into a paste)
- 1 large sweet potato (diced into ½-inch cubes, no need to peel)
- 2 medium potatoes (yellow or red is fine, diced into ½-inch cubes)
- 1 large carrot (sliced into thin rounds)
- 1 large green bell pepper (diced)
- 2 cups green beans (chopped)
- 1-2 cups vegetable stock (or water)
- 14 oz chickpeas (canned or cooked from scratch. Drain thoroughly)
- 1-2 tbsp curry powder (or substitute with garam masala. It will produce a slightly different flavor but works just as well)
- 14 oz full fat coconut milk (one can, stirred)
- 3 scallions (green and white parts chopped)
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp cilantro (chopped, for garnish)
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Heat the oil. Add the cardamom and saute for a minute until the pods start to color slightly.
- Add the onions and saute over medium heat until they start to sweat and turn translucent. Add the turmeric, cayenne, garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 30 seconds.
- Add the sweet potatoes, potatoes, and carrots. Season with some salt and cover the pan. Turn the heat to low and let the vegetables cook about five minutes. If the vegetables start to stick, add some water.
- Now add the green beans and green peppers and ½ cup of water or vegetable stock. Cover again and cook five more minutes.
- Check to see if the potatoes and sweet potatoes are cooked. If they are not, continue to cook, covered, for a few more minutes.
- Stir in the chickpeas, curry powder and another cup of vegetable stock. Bring the mixture to a boil.
- Add the coconut milk and scallions and just let the curry heat through without coming to a boil.
- Stir in the lemon and cilantro and add more salt if needed.
- Serve hot.
Nutrition
Calories: 254kcal | Carbohydrates: 31g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Potassium: 581mg | Fiber: 7g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 7981IU | Vitamin C: 25mg | Calcium: 78mg | Iron: 4mg
More vegan curry recipes
Love this vegetable curry? Check out more vegan curry recipes here on Holy Cow!
Made this for my meat loving hubby and vegetarian nephew. Used green bean, sweet potato, broccoli, leeks and tofu. We loved it! Took me an hour versus 30 minutes though!
Spectacular!!! I did not have a pre-made curry seasoning so I whipped up on fresh one real quick by toasting the spices and grinding them up. I had no curry leaves or fenugreek seeds for the curry seasoning, but it still turned out spectacularly flavorful.
I had baby red potatoes, green beans and red and orange bell pepper so used those along with the garbanzo beans.
I only eat two meals a day so have to pack a little more protein in, so I pressed and fried up some tofu seasoned just with salt, cayenne and paprika.
I will be making this often!!
So happy to hear! Those are great choices for veggies to add to the curry. And love the idea of tofu in there as well. 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
This is the best curry recipe that I’ve made!! I didn’t have cardamom & I swapped green beans for broccoli & cauliflower. It was amazing, everyone loved it!!
Leah, so awesome to hear that! Happy you enjoyed the curry. 🙂
This was the best curry I’ve made and I’ve made a lot of curries! My husband a big meat eater also loved it and went back for 3rds. We finished it and I wanted to keep some as leftovers.
I made two changes- I didn’t actually use the cardamom because I had run out and I used broccoli and added some spinach in addition to the veg in the recipe.
Thanks for this recipe!
Trisha, awesome to hear!
Does the nutrition information include the serving of rice or are there that many carbs in the curry itself? Thank you!
Daughter loves this curry & I was totally surprised when my husband came home from cricket, had 2 bowls & declared it delicious. Surprised as he is usually a lover of the meat curries more.
This was so delicious and easy to make! I use whatever veggies I have on hand and sometimes use noodles instead of rice to switch it up. It’s a hit every time 🙂
Delicious and healthy recipe. Thanks for sharing.
Hi
Can thia recipe be frozen?
Made this over the past weekend for a large group of family and friends. I doubled the recipe and it was all gone in minutes! Terrific recipe, and one I'll make over and over. Thanks, Vaishali
I make this curry at least once each week, and it always is a hit with everyone. The easiest veg curry recipe and the tastiest. Thank you.
This is a fabulous recipe! I’ve made it 3 times, along with the Indian Style Rice with Cashews, Raisins and Tumeric, for company. A huge success?. Thank you for this recipe! Love it!
When do you add in the cayenne pepper?
With the turmeric!
The instructions don't mention chickpeas! When do you add the chickpeas?
Toward the end, with the curry powder!
Step 6
Item 6
My husband loves real trees, and seeing that pine allergies go through the family I have a sneaking suspicion that I will eventually develop one, so I figure to let him have his fun for now. BUT when we went to the tree farm I felt less weird because the guy at the farm was talking about the different lots they had, and the one we were on were exclusively a specific species since they couldn't irrigate water to that land, and the trees were didn't need much water. Making the trees low maintenance. I rather have that land be used for growing trees that will be chopped down (and regrown) than giant cookie cutter homes. But then again, I am not sure how other types of Christmas trees are grown and what they are like, I know the kind we got aren't very popular since the branches aren't as sturdy as fake trees.
This time of year in NYC, there are people selling live Christmas trees on the streets and as it gets closer to Christmas it does make me a little sad to see the ones that are still left and may have been cut down for no reason. I am plenty happy with our fake tree.
This dish has everything I love in life (for food)