Mushroom and Chickpea Curry

Green peas and jalapeño liven up this quick, healthy one-pot dish

Pantries and freezers: They’re the new go-tos during this involuntary staycation. Fortunately, your menu doesn’t need to suffer.

Most ingredients in this dish are things we usually have on hand. The fresh components (such as mushrooms and jalapeños) are ones that keep for a few days, so you don’t need to run to the grocery store too often.

We made this dish for a weeknight dinner. But we would happily serve it to friends for a weekend feast. When we can see friends again.

Lamb Rogan Josh

Spicy but not fiery, this northern Indian dish makes excellent comfort food

The weather is getting chillier here, so we’re starting to crave stews and braises, preferably ones with some snap. Which leads us to Rogan Josh (aka Roghan Josh or Roghan Ghosht). Who can resist meaty chunks in a rich sauce perfumed with aromatic spices?

This dish is loaded with flavor, but it’s not spicy hot, so it appeals to almost everyone. And it’s as easy to make as beef stew.

So serve this at your next dinner party. And introduce your guests to a whole new world of comfort food.

Curried Cauliflower and Chicken Soup

This Indian-style dish is comfort food at its finest

We admit it: As cooler weather moves into our part of the world, we turn into soupaholics.

And this hearty curried soup is becoming one of our faves. We made it with odds and ends we happened to have in the refrigerator (some leftover roast chicken and half a head of cauliflower that needed using).

Best of all, we put it together in about half an hour, so it made an easy weeknight dinner. And it tastes way better than anything you can buy in those red-and-white cans.

Cauliflower, Potato, and Pea Curry

This vegan delight is a great way to eat your veggies

India knows how to cook vegetables. And one favorite flavor combo is cauliflower and potatoes. These two can be paired in hundreds of dishes. They blend particularly well with curry ingredients.

For this dish, we’ve added some green peas to the mix – making the combo even more healthy and colorful. This makes a great side for a vegetarian or vegan meal. But it’s equally at home with roast or grilled fowl or meat.

This is quick to make, too, so it’s perfect for weeknights. And no one will complain about having to finish their veggies.

Spicy Pork Vindaloo

Kinda, sorta like Indian chili con carne

Vindaloo has an incendiary reputation. But no worries if you’re heat-adverse — it’s easy to tame this dish by lightening up on the chile.

Which means you can share this vindaloo with even the most finicky dinner guests (and the flavor is so good, you’ll want to). You can also tell them that pork is really, truly authentic in this dish (more on that below). The vindaloos they’ve had in restaurants are copycats. They’ll feel honored to be at your table.

Indian Carrot Salad with Mustard Seeds

This spicy vegan dish doubles as a starter or side

Can vegan rock? We’ll let this dish answer for itself.

It’s colorful and easy to make. And it’s equally tasty at room temperature or chilled, so you can make it ahead of time.

And don’t tell your vegan friends, but it also goes great with meat or chicken (serve it with fried or roast chicken, grilled or barbecued meat or fish, or even tacos or a burger).

So feel free to use this dish as you like. We won’t say a word.

Vegan Mulligatawny Soup with Cabbage

Chickpeas add depth to this spicy Indian-style soup

Happy World Cabbage Day!

OK, it’s not the best-known holiday. But we’ll take any chance to celebrate. So let’s get cruciferous.

Cabbage isn’t particularly traditional in mulligatawny soup. But we’d like to change that, because cabbage and Indian spices taste like they were made for each other. Our version of M-soup is also vegan and gluten free, so it will suit almost any diet. And it’s versatile: This soup makes a spicy starter, but is hearty enough to serve as a main.

Best of all, the flavor is wonderful. Once you taste this soup, you’ll be circling World Cabbage Day on the calendar. In red.

Spicy Potatoes with Ginger and Garlic

The Deep Flavor of this Vegan Indian Dish Will Make Your Tongue Smile

Of all the world’s cuisines, India’s may have the most numerous and flavorful recipes for potatoes.  Today’s dish is a good example:  It’s rich with ginger, garlic, and spices. 

Although these potatoes go well in a traditional Indian meal, they are equally at home when nestled up to a roast.  They have just enough spice and flavor to make you sit up and take notice, but not so much that they’ll dominate the entire meal.

They may dominate the dinnertime conversation, though, as your guests exclaim over their terrific flavor.

Easy Tandoori Chicken

There’s a Quick Way to Get Restaurant Quality at Home

One of my favorite main-course Indian eats is Tandoori Chicken, a bright red dish with succulent, rich flavor. Traditionally it’s cooked in a tandoor, a cylindrical clay oven that reaches temperatures approaching 900 degrees F. This high heat sears the surface of meat to seal in tasty juices, then quickly cooks everything to tender perfection.

But who has a tandoor at home? And how can you possibly make this dish without a specialized oven?

Well, it’s actually quite easy. You can use an outdoor grill, if you have one. Otherwise, just cook the chicken under your oven’s broiler. True, these methods don’t generate the heat of a tandoor, so it will take a bit longer to cook the chicken. But the flavor of home-cooked is still remarkably good. Maybe not quite tandoor quality, but awfully close.

Best yet, if you use commercial tandoori marinade — a product used in many Indian restaurants — preparation time for this recipe is under 5 minutes. Yet the Tandoori Chicken will be so flavorful, your guests will think you slaved all day over the recipe. I won’t tell if you won’t.

Summer Squash in Tomato Curry Sauce

This Vegan Indian Dish Showcases the Great Flavors of Zucchini and Yellow Squash

Good-quality zucchini and yellow squash are available in markets year round, but we can buy extra-flavorful locally grown varieties during the warm weather months.  I’m still seeing high-quality specimens at my markets in St Louis.  And even though I’ve used both types of squash in various recipes at least a dozen times this spring and summer, I can never get enough of them. 

But I’m ready for a new flavor twist. 

Like this easy and tasty creation.  It would make a great side dish for any Indian meal.  But because it isn’t over-spiced, you can also serve it alongside roast or grilled fish, chicken, or meat. 

It’s simple to prepare.  Or you can make it ahead and reheat when you’re ready to serve. 

What a great way to eat your vegetables!

Aromatic Yellow Rice

Turmeric, Cinnamon, and Cloves Spice Up this Vegan Indian Specialty

Indians have developed a dazzling array of rice dishes.  Like today’s recipe:  Aromatic Yellow Rice.  Simple to prepare, yet appealing to both eye and palate. It owes its vibrant color to turmeric, its tantalizing spicy aroma to cinnamon and cloves. 

Aromatic Yellow Rice naturally goes well with most Indian meals, but it’s equally at home with roast or grilled chicken, meat, or fish.  The flavor is not particularly assertive, but it doesn’t get lost on the plate. 

Easy, colorful, tasty — you’ll find a lot to like in this dish.

Pink Dal with Swiss Chard

This Pleasantly Spicy Vegan Indian Dish is Healthy and Frugal

Lentils don’t get much love.  Which always surprises me, because they’re versatile, inexpensive, and highly tasty.  Especially in dal — an Indian dish that can be made from dried lentils, peas, or beans (pulses). Dal is a typical side dish at Indian meals, usually served with rice or bread. And there are scores of different dal recipes — today’s post is just one example.

Because dal is high in protein (about 25% by weight, comparable to meat), it’s an important nutritional source in India, where over a third of the population are vegetarians.  And since dried lentils and beans are relatively inexpensive and go a long way, dals are an exceptionally thrifty dish.

Bottom line?  Healthy, chock full of flavor, and budget friendly.  It’s (d)all good.

Sweet Potatoes in Tomato Curry Sauce with Hard-Boiled Eggs

There’s a Vegan Option to this Recipe

Every Easter we hard-boil and dye eggs.  Inevitably, we then face the problem of what to do with all those eggs once we’ve finished our gleeful round of decorating.

Deviled eggs (I add curry to mine) are an obvious answer, and a good one.  But this year we wanted to do something different.  Riffing off the curry idea, I decided to make, well, curried eggs.

The dish I devised is well worth trying.  Not only that, there’s a vegan version that’s even better!