Coconut, Chickpea & Lentil Curry

I have always been, and will always be, a bit of a curry fanatic.

That said, I’m not too excellent with overly hot curries; I come from a family with a taste for very, very spicy food, and I often found it just drowned out the flavour. I must stress though, I’m no coward with these things, I’ve just had years of being unfairly compared to an exceptionally spice-resilient family.

So this curry had the same kind of mildness of a korma, but SO much flavour. I love the bite of the chickpeas, and the balance of the lentils with the coconut sauce means that I can enjoy this pretty regularly without the fat content outweighing the protein. You can cook this with brown rice instead of lentils, and it is gorgeous, but I am all about them macros so lentils are my friend.

Ingredients

100g Red lentils (raw weight, as always)
1/2 Medium onion, diced
1/2tsp Garlic powder (you can use fresh garlic, but I am a bit of a sucker for convenience.)
1tsp Ground ginger
1 & 1/2tsp Cumin
1tsp Coriander
1/2tsp Turmeric
1 can Chickpeas (400g net weight, 240g drained, so a standard can)
200ml Alpro coconut cream alternative (I know you can just mix regular coconut cream with water to reduce the fat, I know, but Alpro also adds pea protein to this so it’s far more macro friendly).
150ml Alpro coconut milk
10 sprays Neutral-tasting oil (I use a 2 calories per spray bottle)
1/4tsp salt (do not omit, it tastes so much better with the salt.)

Method

1. Rinse your lentils and put them on to boil over a medium heat for 25 minutes.

2. Dice your onion, and throw it into a frying pan with the oil. Give it five minutes to cook a bit on a medium heat before adding the ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric and salt. Drain and rinse the chickpeas thoroughly, and throw them into the frying pan too. Mix them into the spices as much as possible. Let this all cook for about 5 minutes tops.

3. Add the coconut cream and coconut milk. You can afford to turn up the heat a bit on the pan while this reduces. Stir occasionally.

4. Drain your lentils and portion out as needed (This recipe serves 2). When the sauce has reduced down to the desired thickness, serve with the lentils. Throw a little coriander on top if you wanna improve the presentation.

Per Serving:

438 Calories
21g Protein
15.3g Fat
52.3g Carbs

If you're all about that bangin' healthy foods life, check me out at https://thehenchvegan.wordpress.com/ and I can show you so much more. I swear I'm like a solid 6/10 on looks and a solid 8/10 on recipes.