This vegan fat-free slow cooker dal is creamy and nutritious and flavored with black pepper, turmeric, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, and leafy greens. Soy-free, nut-free recipe.
Winter makes me want to pull out the slow cooker and get something cooking. Because there’s something warm and fuzzy and comforting about food cooked in a crockpot. And is there one good reason not to love food that cooks itself?
My Fat Free Slow Cooker Dal requires just a little bit of prep, but after that all you need to do is plug in your crockpot and leave it alone for a few hours and voila! You are rewarded with a delicious and nutritious dish for your rice or your roti, all without much effort.
One thing to keep in mind when cooking recipes with beans and lentils in a crockpot is that legumes are not perfect crockpot foods, unless you add them precooked or canned. And if you have to precook the legumes, that pretty much defeats the purpose of one-pot cooking, doesn’t it? Soaking the dals can help somewhat, but I am also not looking to add more hours of soaking on top of the four or five needed to cook the dal in the crockpot.
The secret, then, to making a successful dal in a crockpot is to use the right lentils. The kind that break down easily so you get a creamy consistency to your dal. Pink lentils– or masoor dal– are a perfect choice. Dals like udad dal used to make Dal Makhani, and tuvar or chana dal aren’t. I once tried making Dal Makhani in a crockpot and although the result was perfectly nice the udad dal never quite cooked to a creamy consistency.
I made my slow cooker dal fat-free and to it I added some leafy greens for more nutritional muscle. This is a perfect time to dig up those wilting greens in the back of the crisper and give them a happy new life. Use any kind of green, really. Kale is perfect here, but so is spinach. I sometimes add spring greens when I have some left over from a salad.
Fat Free Slow Cooker Dal
Ingredients
- 1 cup masoor lentils
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp ginger
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 cup tomato puree
- 4 packed cups of greens (kale, spinach, watercress, lettuce, or any kind of green, really, is fine here)
- Ground black pepper to taste
- Salt to taste
- 1/4 cup chopped coriander
- A few drops of lemon juice
Instructions
- Soak the lentils in enough water to cover them by an inch.
- Put the crockpot on a high setting and once it is quite hot add the onions, garlic and ginger along with a couple of tablespoons of water.
- Add some salt and ground black pepper. Stir everything well together. Let the onions cook until they are translucent. Placing the lid on the crockpot helps expedite the cooking. Stir the onions every once in a while. This should take about 10 minutes.
- Add the greens and the tomato puree and mix well. Add the turmeric. Stir.
- Drain the lentils and add them to the onions and greens and stir well to mix. Add four cups of water or vegetable stock and mix thoroughly. Add more salt and black pepper.
- Put the lid on the crockpot. Cook for about three hours on a high setting or five hours on a low setting. If the mixture gets dry during cooking, add more water.
- When the dal has broken down thoroughly, stir the dal well with a ladle. Check for salt and add more if needed. Also add more black pepper if you have a taste for it-- I do.
- Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice and add the coriander and stir well. Serve hot.
Nutrition
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Yummy Indian vegan dal recipes from the archives:
kum says
December 6, 2013 atDal looks so nutritious and tasty!
Vaishali, I recently made “Hotel Sambar” , by following the recipe from Srirangam Radhu. The Sambar was awesome with idlis, dosas and Pongal! If you like traditional Tamil Nadu recipes, you will surely like it!
Here is the link for the recipe, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtCix_JGTiY
I hope you try it some time!
Vaishali says
December 6, 2013 atThanks for the link, Kum. I definitely love restaurant-style sambar so I will give it a try.
Pallavi Kulkarni Desai says
December 6, 2013 atThis is the second or third crock pot recipe I am looking at and now I am determined to get my crockpot out and use it!
This daal will be a good start, I can mix other daals and follow the rest of your steps.
Vaishali says
December 7, 2013 atWinter is definitely the season for crockpot cooking, Pallavi. Hope you try the dal!
Ellen says
December 7, 2013 atThis looks good! And easy and healthy. I am going to make it tomorrow. Thank you very much for sharing this!
I have made a few slow cooker dals that were good from the cookbook:
The Indian Slow Cooker: 50 Healthy, Easy, Authentic Recipes
by Anupy Singla
Vaishali says
December 7, 2013 atThanks, Ellen. Hope you like it! And that sounds like a good book. I will check it out.
Pavani says
December 7, 2013 atThat is a easy to make crockpot dal. I will dust my crockpot to make this sometime soon. Thanks for sharing.
What size crockpot do you use?
BTW I love your new blog look.. Looks like you moved to WP now. Do you like it better than blogger?
Vaishali says
December 7, 2013 atThanks, Pavani, I use the big sized one — Not sure about the exact size but I only have seen two sizes ever, the tiny one and the big one. And I don’t know yet if I like wp more. Both have their upsides and downsides.
Joanne T Ferguson (@mickeydownunder) says
December 11, 2013 atG’day Vaishali! beautiful photos and lovely recipe!
LOVE dal and this looks so easy to do! My crock pot would virtually cook it by itself and thanks for sharing this too!
Cheers! Joanne
Anita says
May 19, 2014 atMy dal never broke down, the lentils are still chewy. What did I miss??
Vaishali says
May 19, 2014 atAnita, did you use the pink masoor lentils? Any other lentil will not break down in the slow cooker– something I specify very clearly in the blog. If you did use masoor, there is no reason why the lentils would not break down after cooking for long. The only explanation could be there may be something wrong with the setting son your slow cooker.
James Hirin says
February 10, 2018 atTried this. Used masoor dal lentils. Ended up with a soup with uncooked lentils, even cooked on high with a slow cooker I use all the time. Weird.