Slow cooker cauliflower and spinach curry recipe
A delightfully aromatic dish to come home to on a cold winter's day, this irresistible slow-cooked cauliflower and spinach curry has a coconutty red lentil sauce at its heart. The cauliflower florets and spinach are added shortly before serving to ensure they retain a bit of bite (and their nutritional value too).
The recipe comes from the brilliant cookbook Healthy Vegetarian & Vegan Slow Cooker by Nicola Graimes, and features a North Indian spice mix called panch phoran, which you can buy in large supermarkets.
Don't have any panch phoran to hand? No problem – you can always make your own. Nicola says: "Panch phoran is a spice blend typically made up of a fragrant combination of fenugreek, fennel seeds, nigella seeds, cumin and black mustard seeds. Being a whole spice mix, it works particularly well in a slow cooker, but you could double the quantity of garam masala instead."
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp panch phoran
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 large onion, grated
- 1 thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger, grated
- 100 g split red lentils, rinsed well
- 400 ml just-boiled water from the kettle
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 6 cardamom pods, split
- 400 g coconut milk
- 375 g cauliflower florets
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 150 g baby spinach leaves
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1 handful of coriander (cilantro) leaves
- 1 pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 portions of cooked brown basmati rice, to serve
Details
- Cuisine: Indian-inspired
- Recipe Type: Slow cooker
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 10 mins
- Cooking Time: 240 mins
- Serves: 4
Step-by-step
- Toast the panch phoran in a dry frying pan over a medium-low heat for 1 minute, until it starts to smell aromatic. Tip into a bowl and set aside.
- Heat the coconut oil in the frying pan. Add the onion, ginger and garlic. Fry, stirring, for 5 minutes, until starting to colour. Transfer to the slow cooker pot with the lentils, hot water, tomato purée, turmeric, cardamom and coconut. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook for 4-5 hours on low or 3-4 hours on high.
- 45 minutes before the end of the cooking time, press the cauliflower florets into the sauce, making sure they are submerged as much as possible. After 30 minutes, quickly stir in the garam masala, spinach and lemon or lime juice and cook for another 15 minutes, until the cauliflower is tender and the spinach has wilted. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with brown basmati rice, sprinkled with coriander (cilantro) leaves.
Recipe extracted from Healthy Vegetarian & Vegan Slow Cooker by Nicola Graimes (published by Ryland Peters & Small £16.99). Photography by Kate Whitaker.
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