This delicious Indian mushroom curry recipe is my vegan adaptation of a south Indian, Karwari style mutton curry my dad made each Sunday. It's a flavorful medley of fresh and dried mushrooms and potatoes in a boldly spiced coconut sauce. The curry is gluten-free, soy-free and nut-free.
Table of Contents
Karwari style mushroom curry
I created this mushroom curry recipe, which I call "my dad's not-mutton mushroom curry," in memory of my father who was a great cook. A mutton curry he made for lunch every Sunday was the highlight of our weekends.
Dad's family was from Karwar, a beautiful coastal city in the south Indian state of Karnataka known for its distinctive cuisine that combines coconut with aromatic spices. He had a fierce love for Karwari food and he made this curry exactly as his own mother made it: with lots of coconut and spices like coriander seeds, cloves, cardamom, fennel and poppy seeds.
Dad was involved in every aspect of making the curry, from buying the mutton (goat's meat) in the morning to actually cooking it, as well as supervising everyone in the household who had some role to play in the actual preparation. My job was peeling a whole bulb of garlic and grating two kinds of coconut, fresh and dry. I hated both jobs: the juices from the garlic set my fingernails on fire, and I don't remember a time when I didn't grate my hand along with the coconut!
But I did love that curry. I can close my eyes and still see Dad standing over a two-burner stove in our Bombay kitchen, carefully roasting the spices and the coconut. He loved making that curry, just as much as we loved eating it.
After turning vegetarian, I would crave the spices in my dad's mutton curry and that's when I came up with this mushroom curry. Mushrooms are delicious in Indian recipes like Chettinad mushroom masala and mushroom biryani. They are a natural meat substitute and they are supremely healthy. They add so much delightful texture to this curry, and soak up all the flavor of the spices.
I use all of the same spices that my dad used to make his mutton curry. The spices and coconut are roasted then blended into a smooth paste to make the sauce. But because this is a vegan dish I get to skip several steps involving marinating and tenderizing the meat.
I love this mushroom curry: it is creamy and rich and loaded with flavor, with lots of texture from the mushrooms and potatoes. I swear you will not miss the meat. Even omnivores I've served it to love its robust flavors.
Love mushrooms in curries? Be sure to try this creamy Malaysian mushroom korma and my Instant Pot mushroom and potato korma.
Recipe card
Mushroom Curry
Ingredients
- 1.5 tablespoon avocado oil or any neutral oil
- 2 tablespoon coriander seeds
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1-2 dry red chili peppers (can use cayenne, up to 1 tsp, or any red chili powder, like Kashmiri chili powder for good color and moderate heat)
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 inch cinnamon stick
- 5 cloves
- 5 pods green cardamom pods
- ½-inch piece dagad phool (stoneflower, optional)
- ½ flower mace (optional)
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns (use less for less heat)
- 1 large onion (half sliced, the other half finely diced)
- 6 large cloves garlic (sliced)
- 1-inch piece ginger (thinly sliced)
- ½ cup shredded coconut (unsweetened. Use freshly grated or frozen)
- 2-4 tablespoon cilantro (chopped)
- 2 medium potatoes (cut into 1-inch cubes)
- 2 cups dried shiitake mushrooms (or any dried mushrooms of your choice)
- 8 oz cremini mushrooms or button mushrooms
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice (plus more lemon wedges for serving)
Instructions
- Soak the dry mushrooms in 3 cups boiling water for at least 30 minutes to help them reconstitute. Once they are plump and juicy, halve or quarter them. You can trim out any tough stems.
- Heat ½ tablespoon of the oil in a skillet. Add the coriander, cumin, chillies. cardamom, cloves, dagad phool and mace if using, cinnamon, peppercorns, poppy seeds and fennel seeds, Roast over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the coriander seeds start changing color and become fragrant.
- Add the sliced onion, garlic and ginger and saute until the onions get brown spots. Stir in turmeric after turning off the heat. Remove the spices to a plate to cool down.
- Without adding any more oil, roast the shredded coconut in the hot pan until some of the shreds turn quite brown but be careful not to burn. Coconut has oils and can burn easily. Place the coconut on the plate with the other roasted spices.
- Once the coconut and spices have cooled, add them to the blender with a cup of water (or use a cup of the water you soaked the mushrooms in). Blend into a very smooth paste.
- In the same skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil.
- Add the chopped onions and cilantro with about ½ teaspoon of salt and cook until the onions begin to brown.
- Stir in the potatoes and the shiitake mushrooms. Add the water remaining from soaking the mushrooms to the pot, stir, cover and let the potatoes cook until almost tender. Stir a couple of times while they are cooking to make sure there's some liquid in the pot.
- Once the potatoes are almost done, add the crimini or button mushrooms, stir to mix, and then add the ground masala from the blender.
- At this point add a cup or two of water or vegtable stock to thin out the curry to your liking. Stir well, check the seasoning and add salt, and let the curry come to a boil. Let it cook, uncovered, over medium-high heat until you see some specks of fat pool at the top, about 10-15 minutes. You can add more water at any point if the curry gets too thick.
- Garnish with cilantro and turn off the heat. Serve hot with wedges of lemons to squirt on top of the curry.
Notes
- For a low-carb diet, leave the potatoes out of this recipe to reduce carbs to 16 net grams.
- To reduce oil, cut down the oil in step 6 to ½ tbsp.
- If you are feeding this to children, cut down the quantity of peppercorns to up to ¼ teaspoon and also cut down or leave out red chili peppers/powder.
- Use 1 cup coconut milk instead of grated coconut.Â
Nutrition Information
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Mushroom curry FAQs
I use two kinds of mushrooms in this recipe, fresh cremini mushrooms and dried, reconstituted shiitake mushrooms. The fresh and dried mushrooms add different flavors and textures. Use any mushrooms you can find, fresh or dried, including button mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, lion's mane mushrooms, portobello mushrooms and maitake mushrooms.
Absolutely.
There are potatoes in this recipe, in addition to the mushrooms. I strongly recommend not adding more veggies so as to not dilute the flavor, but if absolutely want to you can add eggplant, zucchini or cauliflower.
The mushroom curry pairs nicely with any Indian bread, including roti and vegan naan. We would eat the curry with a soft roll called pav, tearing pieces of the bread with our fingers and dunking it into the curry. A soft sourdough roll would be just as wonderful.
I also love this curry with rice, like jeera rice, carrot rice or turmeric rice. Serve vegan raita on the side.
VK says
Thanks for this excellent recipe. I made it as is , used chanterelle mushrooms. Next time I will reduce pepper to 1/2 teaspoon. My husband who used to be a meat eater 15 years back said it tastes like mutton.
Pradeep Kanthan says
Have tried this recipie a couple of times. It does come out well. I add few big pieces of cauliflower. They absorb the masala well.
Finishing it off with thin cocount milk enhances the flaovour.
Having been a meat eater ... this is as close as it gets without harmful chemicals.
Good one.
Vaishali says
So great to hear this feedback. Thanks, Pradeep. I like the use of cauliflower.
NIcola says
How much flower mace please?
Vaishali says
Hi, 1/2 of one flower.