CHICKPEA CURRY | Easy Vegetarian Curry Recipe!

This chickpea curry ticks all of the boxes. It's healthy, budget-friendly, meal prep-friendly, loaded with plant-based protein, and incredibly flavorful with all of those warming curry spices. It's a quick cooking dish made from pantry staples that you likely already have on hand, and it's just begging to be served up over rice. So let me show you how to make it. To get started, you'll need to dice one medium onion. And for those of you who have my healthy meal prep cookbook, this recipe may look familiar because it's on page 210 in the Veggie Mains chapter. But I just got special permission from my publisher to add it to the website as well. So as of today, you can now find it in both locations, which is awesome. But back to the recipe. After you've diced up your onion, add it to a prep bowl and then set it aside. The next ingredient is ginger, and you'll need about a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger. I love fresh ginger for its potency and sharp flavor, which I think really helps to make this recipe shine. But in a pinch, you could swap in about one teaspoon of dried ginger. And then for the garlic, because you know we've gotta have garlic in most of my savory recipes, smash four garlic cloves, peel off their skins, and then set those to the side as well. The last thing you'll need to prep is the cilantro, and you'll need to roughly chop a bunch about this size. It doesn't have to be a fine chop because it will wilt down as it's stirred with the chickpea curry. So just run your knife through it a couple of times and then place that in another prep bowl. And that's it in terms of prep. This is a super easy recipe because the heart of the recipe is pantry staples like canned chickpeas, canned coconut milk, and spices. Add a tablespoon of coconut oil if you wanna keep the coconut theme going, or you can use olive oil as well, to a large saute pan and then toss in the diced onion. Saute that for four to five minutes or until it starts to soften, and then add the grated ginger and then mince those four garlic cloves that you peeled straight into the pan. Stir that for another minute or so until the ginger and garlic become nice and fragrant. Drain and rinse two 15 1 1 1 1 oz cans of chickpeas, then add those to the pan along with one 13 1 1 1 oz can of full-fat coconut milk. This will give the curry sauce a nice and creamy texture. Add one cup of vegetable broth, and I'm using low-sodium broth, and then next comes all of the flavor-making spices, which includes two tablespoons of curry powder, though you can always add a little bit more if you'd like, one and a half teaspoons of garam masala, which is a spice blend that adds a little bit more punchiness and warmth, one teaspoon of ground cumin, which is one of my personal favorite spices, and one teaspoon of kosher salt. Stir this all together so that the color of the coconut milk turns a golden brownish color, which is the unmistakable color of curries, and then bring this to a boil. Once it's boiling, give it another stir, and then reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. The simmering helps all of the flavors meld together, and you don't have to worry about cooking anything per se, as there's no animal protein in here. It's just plant-based chickpeas. But the simmering does reduce the sauce a smidge, which helps it to thicken up, though heads up that you don't want it reducing too much as it will naturally thicken from the starch from the chickpeas as it cools, and I, for one, like it a bit more saucy. Remove the coconut chickpea curry from the stove and inhale all of those delicious Indian spices. I am such a fan of Indian spices, and whenever I make this recipe, or any other curry for that matter, it instantly transports me back to when I visited India in my late 20s. It's funny how smell really has a way of cementing memories in your brain, and for your viewing pleasure, here are a few photos of that solo adventure trip, which was spectacular. But back to this chickpea curry. Add the chopped cilantro, and then squeeze the juice of one lime, which is about two tablespoons of juice, and the punch of acidity from the lime really balances out the other flavors. Stir that all together one last time so that the cilantro starts to wilt just a little bit, and you can see already that the sauce is starting to thicken up as well. If you're looking for a healthy, turmeric-powered, vegetarian meal prep option that you can easily reheat throughout the week, it's really hard to beat this recipe, especially with how easy it is to make. And if you wanna green it up even further, you can add a handful or two of roughly chopped spinach or kale at the end here. And while that was simmering, I also quickly cooked up some basmati rice, so I'll just give that a quick fluff before plating it up. Add a generous portion of rice to a plate or bowl, and I say generous because it is so delicious when the curry sauce soaks into the rice, so you do want a nice bed of that, and then top that with a few more generous spoonfuls of coconut chickpea curry, plus a few extra spoonfuls of extra sauce from the pan, just for good measure. If you're serving this up for a dinner party or just wanna get fancy, you can garnish the sides of the plate with a few slices of lime and a few extra sprigs of cilantro. This one simple recipe has so many of the different flavors that I love, including curry, cumin, and cilantro lime. I'm happy I am not one of those. This has the gene that cilantro tastes like soap because I love cilantro. It's also extra delicious how the coconut curry sauce just really soaks into all of that rice. And because this recipe came from my meal prep cookbook, you guys know that it is a meal prep friendly recipe, and that is perfect for me right now because I don't know if you guys know, but I am moving in about three weeks, so we've got this video, and I think one more filmed in this kitchen, and then probably a couple of weeks break while I move and get resettled, and then everything else is gonna be filmed in my new kitchen, so you guys are gonna have to stay tuned to see that. In terms of storage for this recipe, it lasts for about four to five days in the fridge, which is good because, again, I am packing all week long and I need an easily reheatable meal, so I will put the rice in one container and then the coconut chickpea curry in another container, and then combine them and reheat them for just super easy meals for this week and next week. I hope you guys enjoy today's video, and if you haven't grabbed my meal prep cookbook yet, make sure to buy this. You can get it at Target, Amazon, anywhere books are sold, and if you love the video, make sure to give it a thumbs up, share it with your family and friends, and I will see you in the next video.