This is the vegan dinner I cook more than any other. Once a week, sometimes twice. It’s a 25-minute one-pan chickpea and spinach curry that costs about $9 to feed four people, and it tastes like something you’d order off a menu. It’s also accidentally a complete protein, gluten-free, dairy-free, and it freezes well in single-serve containers so future-me has lunch sorted.
Most chickpea curry recipes online are written by people who have never actually had to feed someone with this dish — they call for fourteen spices and a curry leaf they tell you you can “leave out”. I’m not interested in that. This is the version I make from the actual contents of an actual Aussie pantry, with the actual spices that are at Coles or your local Indian grocer, and it tastes like it came from someone’s grandmother. That’s the bar.
The pantry — six things, that’s it
- Tinned chickpeas — two tins. Coles Italian Brand, $1.40 each. Drained and rinsed.
- Tinned tomatoes — whole peeled, one tin. Not diced. See the pantry guide for why diced is the enemy.
- Coconut milk — full-fat, one tin. Ayam in the green can from Coles.
- Spinach — a 250 g bag of baby spinach from Harris Farm, or a bunch of English spinach, or frozen if that’s what you’ve got.
- One brown onion + four cloves garlic + a thumb of ginger — the aromatics.
- Spices — cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, smoked paprika. All available in the spice aisle at Coles for $2–3 each, all of them earning their keep across half a dozen other dishes too.
The method — 25 minutes, one pan
- Finely dice the onion. Smash the garlic flat and slice it thin. Grate the ginger on a fine grater (skin and all — it dissolves into the curry).
- Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable or olive oil in a heavy frying pan or wide saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and cook 6–7 minutes until soft and just starting to colour at the edges.
- Add the garlic and ginger. Stir for 60 seconds, no more — you don’t want garlic going brown.
- Add the spices, all at once: 2 teaspoons cumin, 2 teaspoons ground coriander, 1 teaspoon turmeric, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, ½ teaspoon garam masala (the garam masala goes in early *and* late — bear with me). Stir for 30 seconds; the kitchen will smell extraordinary. This is the “tempering” step and it’s non-negotiable.
- Tip in the tin of whole peeled tomatoes. Break them up with a wooden spoon. Add the drained chickpeas. Add the full tin of coconut milk. Stir to combine.
- Bring to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered for 12 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes, until the sauce thickens to a proper coating consistency. The chickpeas will start to absorb the flavour and the sauce will turn from “tomato and coconut” into “curry”.
- Stir in the spinach by handfuls, letting each addition wilt before adding the next. About two minutes total.
- Off the heat. Stir in the second ½ teaspoon of garam masala (this is the part most home cooks miss — the second hit of garam masala at the end is what makes it taste restaurant-grade). Salt to taste. Squeeze in half a lemon.
- Serve over basmati rice or with the gluten-free buckwheat bread if you’ve got it.
What turns it from “fine” into “extraordinary”
- Two hits of garam masala. Half at the start, half at the end. The early one cooks into the sauce; the late one keeps the aromatic top-note alive.
- Toast the dry spices before adding wet ingredients. Those thirty seconds in oil are the whole difference between cooking and reheating.
- Don’t drain the chickpea liquid down the sink. Save it (it’s called aquafaba) for whipping into vegan meringues or mayonnaise. It also has a use a tablespoon at a time as a thickener.
- Cook it the day before. Like every curry, it tastes better the next day. The spices unify in the fridge.
What to do with leftovers
Freeze single-serve portions in glass containers. Pull one out on a Tuesday night when you’ve got an hour between getting home and going to bed. Reheat in a pan with a splash of water (the microwave splits the coconut milk). Pile onto a baked sweet potato. Tip onto toast with a fried egg if you’re not strictly vegan. Roll into a wrap with rice.
The leftover trick that lifts it from “again” to “again, please” is to crisp some roasted chickpeas on top — a handful from a second tin, tossed with smoked paprika and salt, roasted at 220 °C for 20 minutes until they crackle. They add the crunch the original dish doesn’t have.
The nutrition footnote
One serve of this (about a quarter of the pan) has roughly 18 g of protein, 12 g of fibre, and the full daily folate target for an adult, mostly from the chickpeas and spinach. The CSIRO’s research on legume-rich diets has been consistent for years now — they’re protective for cardiovascular health and they cost almost nothing. The reason I make this so often isn’t the nutrition argument though. It’s that it tastes really, really good and it costs about $2.30 per serve.
If this is your introduction to weeknight vegan cooking, this is the dish to start with. It’s bullet-proof. And once you’ve got it, the entire vegan comfort food rotation opens up: minestrone on Monday, this on Wednesday, pesto gnocchi on Friday. You’ll never miss whatever it is you thought you were missing.
— Jess
