Lentil and Spinach Curry

March 13, 2013 By Leanne Vogel November 30, 2018

I love Indian food in a head over heels, madly, deeply, crazy, crushin’, love bug sorta way.

I’m smitten. And there is no sign of it dissipating.

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But man, good luck finding Indian recipes that are ghee-free, dairy-free and oil-reduced. It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack!

So, instead of wasting time searching for the perfect Indian recipes, I’ve chosen to create a collection of my own healthy Indian recipes. Care to join me?

Before you get intimidated by all the hot peppers in the photo above, don’t worry, I didn’t add this much to the recipe!

I’m committed to providing you with the best (simple) healthy recipes out there… and that includes creating recipes that wont burn your tongue off!

And hey, if you love this recipe and think that your friends would love it too, I’d love for you to pass on the the love by sharing this recipe on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Your ongoing support lets me continue to create awesome recipes, blog posts, meal plans and cleanse programs for y’all!

And, just in case you were wondering, spinach and lentils are a match made in heaven.

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5.0 from 4 reviews

Lentil and Spinach Curry

Author: Leanne Vogel

Recipe type: Vegan, Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Sugar-free, Yeast-free, Corn-free, Grain-free, Nut-free, Egg-free

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 35 mins

Total time: 50 mins

Serves: 4

A super simple, healthy Indian recipe made with yellow lentils, spinach and spices.

Ingredients

2½ cups water
1⅓ dry/uncooked toor dal (aka tuvar dal, arhar dal, yellow lentils, tur dal) or yellow split peas, rinsed and drained
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon coconut oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon freshly ground ginger
250 grams baby spinach, chopped roughly
1 green chilli, de-seeded and cut in half (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Tempering:

1 teaspoon coconut oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 dried red chillies, broken up with your hands
1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
6 curry leaves

Instructions

Add water, lentils, turmeric and salt in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low. Cover and cook for 25 minutes, or until lentils are soft. Drain excess water, reserving ¼ cup. Return lentils back to saucepan along with reserved cooking water. Mash lightly with a fork or potato masher and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a separate pan, saute coconut oil with garlic and ginger. Add chopped spinach and cook for 1-2 minutes until lightly wilted.
Add spinach to lentil mixture along with chillies.
In the same pan you sauteed the spinach in, add tempering ingredients and heat on medium-high until seeds begin to pop and get golden.
Drop tempering into lentil mix and stir to combine. Return lentil mixture to the heating element and cook, covered on low heat, for 5-10 minutes.
Stir in lemon juice and fresh cilantro.

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Adding the turmeric to the lentils give them a nice, bright yellow color. It’s really pretty, actually. I was tempted to just stop the recipe here and snack on lentils, but I held back knowing there was something even better coming.

250 grams of spinach is a lot of spinach. Plan to use an entire package of it.

But, spinach is good for you… so spinach it up!

Instead of having a garlic mincer, large knife and a citrus zester in my small kitchen of mine, I use a citrus zester to mince my garlic and ginger and save kitchen space, money and time.

Who doesn’t like conserving kitchen space, money and time?

For the tempering, add all ingredients to your frying pan and heat until the seeds start to lightly pop. You’ll hear them!

And, if you’d really like to treat yourself you can find patak gluten-free pappadums in the ethnic isle of many grocery stores. They’re not certified gluten-free, but if you’re on a gluten-free diet and NOT celiac, have at ‘er. I rubbed a little bit of coconut oil on each, heated them up and had a plate full of healthier pappadums waiting before me.