I have an excellent recipe for you, as well as a special treat for all of you Loki fans.
Over spring break, my husband and I took our high school junior on a 5-day whirlwind tour of 6 colleges in Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana. We had excellent vegan food, especially in Chicago (Karyn’s on Green just rocks!) but one meal stands out as an unexpected treat. We were driving through Indianapolis after touring our last college, on our way back to Chicago to catch a 9pm flight home, and stopped at an all-vegetarian Indian restaurant called Spice Nation.
We were just in time for the lunch buffet, where all the vegan dishes were helpfully labeled. I will be honest: We stuffed ourselves. Everything was so good, and it was a thrill to be able to eat at an Indian restaurant and not worry about butter or cream. I think all of us would agree that our favorite dish was the one that was put out last, a creamed spinach with chickpeas similar to Palak Paneer but without the cheese.
By the time the spinach dish was put out on the buffet, I was already so full that I could only have a small taste of it. Rich and creamy, it was hard to believe that it was vegan, but the staff assured us it truly was. I came home determined to replicate it at home. Of course, I had to be a little different, so I made my version with kale instead of spinach. But my family didn’t notice, and according to them, it’s as good as the original, which was definitely not low-fat.
I used a few raw cashews for creaminess, but other than that, this rich, flavorful curry contains no oil, not even to temper the spices. I also used soy milk, but you can make it completely soy-free by using rice, almond, hemp, or coconut milk. And, of course, it’s naturally gluten-free.
It was an instant family favorite both for its flavor and for how quick it is to prepare. Even using a bunch of kale that had to be washed, stemmed, and chopped, I was able to make this dish in under a half hour. If you use pre-chopped kale or spinach, you can make it even more quickly.
Creamy Curried Kale and Chickpeas
Ingredients
- 1 large onion chopped
- 4 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 tablespoon ginger root minced, or 1 tsp. powdered ginger
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 2 teaspoons garam masala see below
- 1 teaspoon coriander
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 8 cups chopped kale 1 10-ounce bunch, about 6 ounces after stems removed, packed
- 1/2 cup low-sodium vegetable broth
- 1 cup unsweetened soymilk or other non-dairy milk
- 1/4 cup raw cashews
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast optional
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 15- ounce cans chickpeas drained and rinsed well
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Heat a large, non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until softened and beginning to brown, 4-5 minutes, adding water by the tablespoon if needed to prevent sticking. Add the garlic, ginger, and cumin seeds and cook for 1 minute. Add the remaining spices and cook for another minute, stirring constantly to prevent burning.
- Reduce heat to medium. Stir in the kale and vegetable broth. Cover and cook until the kale is bright green and tender, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- While the kale is cooking, put the milk, cashews, nutritional yeast, and tomato paste in the blender and puree until smooth. When the kale is done, add it to the blender and blend until smooth.
- Transfer blended mixture back to the skillet and bring to a simmer. Check seasonings and add more to taste. Stir in chickpeas and continue simmering about 10 minutes. Add salt to taste and serve over basmati rice.
Notes
1 small cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns Toast lightly in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant (be careful not to burn). Remove from heat, cool, and grind in a coffee grinder or spice mill. Use immediately or seal tightly and store in a dark place away from heat. Makes about 2 tablespoons.
Nutritional info is approximate.
Before our trip, I had to buy a new suitcase. It arrived from Amazon in a big box that Loki immediately decided was our gift to him. I taped his favorite toy to the top and threw some of his balls and stuffed animals inside, and whenever he starts running wild, knocking everything off the kitchen table or climbing up the drapes, I bring him over to his box. This is the result:
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Bill Madison
Great recipe, thank you.
Alice
This looks great, but I’m allergic to cashews! Any recommendations for a stand-in nut?
Susan Voisin
Any nut or seed that will lend creaminess will do. Off the top of my head, I would suggest sunflower seeds, pecans, sesame seeds, or pinenuts. And, of course, you could just leave out the cashews or substitute a little silken tofu.
Fern Reed
Loved the video of your cat playing
Corrin Radd
Made this for dinner tonight. Awesome way to eat greens.
Amanda
I noticed many of your recipes call for raw nuts. Is that because there is added oil in roasted nuts that you are trying to avoid? Most of the nuts I buy are roasted and would like to use them in your recipes unless there is a reason that I am not thinking of that would make them unsuitable.
Thanks!
Susan Voisin
Amanda, there are many reasons why raw nuts are more nutritious than roasted, including that some roasted nuts contain added oil and salt. Roasting destroys many of nuts’ delicate nutrients. But besides the health benefits, raw nuts, especially cashews, blend up to be much more creamy than roasted ones. I hope you will have the chance to try this recipe with the raw nuts.
Sally K.
Thus dish looks just wonderful. I never thought of making my own garem masala, but I bet making it fresh really kicks up the flavor of this dish. Thanks for the great recipe idea and I hope you are feeling much better!
C
Susan,
I just made the Creamy Curried Kale and thought it was fantastic. Thanks so much for the recipe. My husband and I have just started following the Dr Fuhrman “eat to live” plan and your recipes have been so helpful. We really appreciate what a great resource your site is for good recipes. Thank you.
Sharon Hoy
Yummy! Tomorrow’s dinner sorted…can’t wait to try this – such a lovely combo! Thank you
rachwigg
I made this last night with collards and it was amazing! We served it over quinoa. Even my omni partner who usually claims things don’t feel like “meals” without bread or meat ate it right up and loved it! Thanks.
Nita Ruggiero
I made this for dinner last night and it was totally awesome – we LOVED it. I love that you used kale instead of spinach. It was as good as any dish I’ve ever had in an Indian restaurant! Thanks for all you do Susan!
Mihl
I made this for lunch and I loved how simple and easy it was to make. This is much better than palak paneer. Thanks for the great recipe, Susan!
Carry
We made this for dinner last night and it is absolutely amazing! The spice level is perfect. It came together in about 25 minutes, too, just like you promised 🙂 Perfect for a quick weeknight meal.
Shan
This is so incredibly tasty! I am absolutely addicted to this dish — so much so that I ate the leftovers for breakfast! The best part is that it is so quick and easy to make – 30 mins from start to finish! I added frozen green peas and fresh asparagus along with the chick peas for a nice, fresh burst of veggies.
Cora
This is our favorite dinner of 2014 thus far! We paired it with a bellpepper/pineapple/red onion/red pepper flakes curry and brown rice – man, was it good!
Hannah
Delicious! My blender struggled with the kale (it is only a poor little Oster but has held up well over the years)… A vitamix is a few years down the road for me, but even though it didn’t blend as smoothly as I originally wanted, I enjoyed that it had more texture than say a chana saag.
Lisa
I made this tonight for Sunday dinner and it is excellent! I was out of Garam Masala, but found a “make your own” recipe on the web and it worked. The best thing about this recipe is that it is a great way to use the kale and other greens we get in our CSA each week and the entire family loves it! I cannot wait for lunch time tomorrow when I get to have leftovers. Thanks for posting such a versatile and healthy recipe!
Libby
If you, like me, are a plebe without a Vitamix, do not use kale in this recipe. It’s not creamy at all – very disappointing. If I make this again, I will stick to spinach, which blends well in a regular blender.
Kari
Actually I just made it – without a vitamix – and mine looks like the one on the photo. I used pre-soaked raw cashews and a stick blender and made sure I blended for a few minutes.
Delicious!
Alisa
I just made this today. Turned out very well — I didn’t want to deal with grinding cashews, so I used one russet baking potato and the liquid from home-cooked chickpeas to make the ‘creaminess’; came out just fine. Thanks for the inspiration and the recipe! (BTW, I live in Indiana, and the Spice Nation buffet is a favorite spot for overindulging.)
Emily
This is such a lovely dish, I did find it slightly bitter as I was cooking it, so i roasted some carrots which gave it a lovely sweet balance when eating.
I also didn’t have much kale, so did half kale half and baby spinach.
Nicole Hundelt
This is wonderful. Your recipes are all good but this one just hit on all levels of yum without any guilt.
Deanna
My husband and I both thought this dish was so tasty. I left out the cumin as I find that cumin makes a dish seem “bitter” to me, but we both found it tasted wonderful without the cumin.
A couple of members of our family are lactose intolerant, one has a gluten intolerance as well and another is a vegetarian so many of the recipes from your blog are ideal for our family get togethers. Also, we all love Indian vegetarian dishes, so recipes like this are very much appreciated!
Thank you for developing and sharing your recipes on your blog!
Kristin
I’ve been making this pretty obsessively lately, mostly because it’s amazing, and partly because I’m inherently lazy and it’s so much easier to dump pre-bagged greens in without having to mess with chopping and all that. Today, I left out the Indian spices and added basil paste and garlic to the blender (also used cannelini beans and added a pound of cooked mushrooms). SO good!
Charlene
It was very brave of you to share your story with all your site’s readers. I join the many, many fans who are directing positive energy to you for your healing and complete recovery. I recently made your Lentil soup recipe which was absolutely delicious. Thanks for bringing interesting recipes to us all.
Sowji
I made this with scallions instead of onion and a combination of regular kale and dinosaur kale. I started with tempering of jeera and shahjeera. I totally loved it and I’m sure my family too.
Ann
Adorable, I loved when the cat dragged the green prey into the box.
April
Made this for dinner today using a 6 oz bunch of kale, stems and all! Now I don’t have to figure out how to use up the stems in some other recipe. (: I also substituted soft tofu for the cashews. It came out great! Thank you!
elizabethxf
Wow! I just made this for dinner tonight and it was amazing! My husband loved it and he is picky. Thank you so much for this great site- I am on it many times a week. We are doing the Dr. Furhman 6 week program and you make it so easy because so many of your recipes fit the program but are so delicious it doesn’t feel like we are missing out on anything.
jem
I’ve been looking at this recipe for a while and today is an extremely cold day — I certainly don’t want to go outside. So, before I start to make this I hope you can answer a question for me. Are the cans of chickpeas supposed to be drained before adding them. I’ve searched the webpage and can’t find an answer to this so I’m supposing that all the liquid gets stirred in too. Thank you! I’m looking forward to dinner tonight!
Susan Voisin
Yes! Sorry, I normally write “drained and rinsed” after any canned beans, but somehow I left that off here. Hope you find it warming on this cold day.
mike
I want to make this but have questions. Its called Curried but I saw no curry in the ingredient and you list tomatoe paste in the instructions, but thats not in the ingredient list. Thanks
Susan Voisin
Hi Mike. Curry is a type of dish, not an ingredient. According to Wikipedia, “The common feature is the incorporation of complex combinations of spices or herbs, usually including fresh or dried hot chillies. Some limit the use of the term curry to dishes prepared in a sauce, but curries may be ‘wet’ or ‘dry’. A curry dish may be spiced with leaves from the curry tree, but many curries do not have this ingredient.”
I’m not sure what you mean about the tomato paste. It’s in both the instructions and ingredient list.
Rhonda Wright
Greetings, this dish sounds amazing while being so simple to make (my favorite kinds of recipes), however, I am not a fan of tomatoe paste, if this a key ingredient in the dish? If so, is there an alternative, or do you know if it would be just as good with fresh tomatoes?
Deborah Calderon
here’s to a good recovery.
Angela
Hi Susan! I’m so glad I found this recipe! I had some kale leftover and wanted to use it up. This was a tasty solution to the problem and it’s going to be hitting our table regularly. Thank you!
Jenny
Thank you for this recipe. Just tried it tonight and it was just great. Yum!
Cathy
So glad I stumbled over this recipe. Made it this morning and it is soooo good! I often sprout chickpeas, this is a great recipe to add my sprouted chickpeas to. Thank you so much for sharing this delicious recipe.
Matthew Allen
Made this tonight, and it was seriously amazing. I likely will up the Ginger and heat next time; but the flavor was perfect. My first real try at Indian food. Thanks Susan!
Martin
Great recipe. I have to try it one day. I really love pictures you add to your post. They are of really good quality, just as the food. But I will have to cook it first myself to find that out 🙂
Jette
Thank you for sharing your loki videos… I am still smiling.
laloofah
FINALLY got around to making this dish the other day and it was an instant hit (so typical of your recipes!) We didn’t change a thing about it and don’t feel any need to, though I see some interesting suggestions for additions in your comments. We had very little leftover (and there are only 2 of us! We gorged!), but what was left was delicious wrapped in whole wheat tortillas the next day. Thank you for another wonderful, healthy, easy recipe!
Jessica S.
I made this yesterday and loved it over brown rice. I cut back on the “heat” a bit. Fantastic.