This vegan carrot curry is a big flavoured spicy treat, sweet with carrots, earthy with chickpeas and all-around tasty with Indian spices!
Simple Spicy Vegan Curry.
This curry is a proper corker of a dish that is so simple to make. It was born of the result of a glut of carrots a few years ago.
Seriously we grew tonnes of them, I am not exaggerating, we stopped weighing in at 3,000kg.
We even tried to make carrot wine. Don’t do it! Seriously!
This Indian carrot curry, on the other hand, comes highly recommended. It features big Indian flavours and a really thick and unctuous curry sauce.
Again this simple curry recipe uses spices rather than a generic curry powder blend.
But don’t worry, this is simple stuff!
Chickpeas make a fantastic curry and I already have a pretty traditional Indian chickpea curry here as well as a chickpea and sweet potato curry on my site.
The chickpeas here help carry huge amounts of flavour and provide a great earthiness.
Then the sweet carrots are the perfect foil against the spicy sauce.
Naturally Vegan Food.
I am neither vegan or vegetarian but I am a lover of good food.
When I am developing a recipe I never consider what should be omitted.
As a result, this carrot curry recipe is vegan because it is, not because I feel it should be.
My site is littered with well-known examples like aloo gobi and saag aloo to completely made-up recipes like my spinach and mushroom curry.
Use Tinned Chickpeas.
This recipe has been adopted by my wife it is one of her favourite store cupboard meals.
As a result of that, it is usually made with tinned chickpeas and they work really well!
Of course, you can cook your own chickpeas but you need to cook them separate from the sauce.
Cooking them in the sauce takes too long and you will end up with soggy carrots.
You can also scale up this recipe and batch cook it.
It freezes exceptionally well, I usually store in thick freezer bags and then reheat and defrost the entire bag in simmer water.
Yes, that makes it a boil in the bag curry!
I like to serve this with either naan bread or chapatis and a generous sprinkling of coriander.
Carrot Curry Recipe with Chickpeas
Indian food is well known for vegan and vegetarian fodder and this chickpea and carrot curry is super simple and is packed with big flavours!
Ingredients
- 300 g (10.5 oz) Carrots
- 250 g (8.75 oz) Cooked Chickpeas
- 200 g (7 oz) Tinned Tomatoes
- 75 g (2.75 oz) Onion
- 4 Cloves Garlic
- 30 g (1oz) Ginger
- 165 g (5.75 oz) Coconut Milk
- 1 Tbsp Cooking Oil
- 1 Tsp Kashmiri Chili Powder
- 1 Tsp Ground Coriander
- 1 Tsp Ground Turmeric
- 1/2 Tsp Ground Cumin
- 1/4 Tsp Ground Black Pepper
- 1/8 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp Dried Fenugreek Leaves
- Salt to Taste
Instructions
- Peel and cut the carrots into 3cm lengths.
- Cut the onion into a 3-4mm dice.
- Grate the ginger and mash the garlic.
- Heat a pan over a medium high heat and when hot add the cooking oil.
- Fry the carrots in this oil for 10 minutes, you want them to get a little bit of colour.
- Whilst the carrots are frying combine all of the spices with the exception of the fenugreek in a bowl.
- When the carrots are nicely caramelised add the onions and reduce the heat to medium and fry for 5 minutes until translucent.
- Then add the garlic and ginger and cook for 60 seconds.
- Increase the heat to medium high and then sprinkle over the spices and allow to toast for 60 seconds, stirring to ensure they do not burn.
- Add in the tomatoes, coconut milk, and chickpeas and then stir to combine.
- Finally, add the fenugreek, season to taste with salt, and add a tight fitting lid and cook for 40 minutes on low.
Notes
Use carrots that are around 1.5cm thick, any thicker and you will need to increase the cooking time.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
2Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 558Total Fat: 28gSaturated Fat: 15gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 611mgCarbohydrates: 69gFiber: 21gSugar: 17gProtein: 18g
Amie Freed
Friday 10th of July 2020
What a beautiful, delicious recipe! My boyfriend is from India and he loved it! I doubled the recipe to use a whole can of tomatoes, coconut milk, and chickpeas. Lots of yummy leftovers! I used rainbow carrots, which were really lovely, but the turmeric stains everything so I'll use orange carrots next time. Thanks for my new favorite recipe!
Brian Jones
Wednesday 15th of July 2020
Great to hear from you Amie... So glad you like the recipe, this wee unassuming curry has become very popular here on my site and in our house in a relatively short period of time! Stoked that you both like it!
Kathy
Monday 1st of June 2020
Wow! I wanted to learn some curry recipes during lockdown, and had some excess carrots. Looking online I came across this recipe. This is my new favourite site for recipes. I did this in my slow cooker. You could add any veg. I added half the chilli powder because I don't like super spicy food. Really easy and I have already seen lots of other recipes I want to try. Love the no fads/diets approach. Just hearty, honest and wholesome food. The flavours are still tingling on my tongue.
Antonella
Thursday 4th of June 2020
@Kathy, I was just wondering how you adapted this for the slow cooker? I'm pretty new to all this and much prefer my slow cooker whenever I can use it :) thx so much!!
Brian Jones
Tuesday 2nd of June 2020
Hey Kathy... Glad to have you around, I'm just a cook really, some of it fancy, some of it simple, some of it quick and some of it slow but I think all of it tasty!
So happy that you enjoyed this recipe, I'm really proud of this one it came out of some experiments when we accidentally grew WAY too many carrots one year, I do a similar thing with sweet potato that works really well.
Enjoy the tingles :)
Aroha Kay
Sunday 29th of March 2020
This was so yummy and so easy! I had everything except coconut milk, so nipped down to the shop to get some. This was a flavourful dish. Thank you.
Brian Jones
Sunday 29th of March 2020
Glad you like it :)
Jane
Wednesday 30th of January 2019
Hi Brian I made this dish this evening and it was really delicious. My husband who's a real meat eater and not a fan of chick peas is really raving about it. The carrots made it really lovely and sweet. Thanks for the recipe.
Brian Jones
Thursday 31st of January 2019
Glad you like it Jane and most importantly glad your husband liked it... Chickpeas can often be a challenge to cook with but treat em well and they work really well.
kim
Thursday 17th of January 2019
Love the flavors in this meal! It's such a warm, comforting dish and so perfect for the winter season!
Brian Jones
Friday 18th of January 2019
Thanks Kim!