This quick, easy Indian chickpea curry with tomato and spinach makes for a perfect midweek meal; a satisfying dish that can be on the table in just 25 minutes. Leftovers freeze well and are easy to reheat in a microwave for a packed lunch. Full instructions and substitution suggestions included.
Easy Chickpea Curry with Tomato and Spinach
This Indian chickpea curry with tomato and spinach is high on my list of easy midweek supper recipes, and is probably my favourite vegan dinner recipe. Starting from scratch, it can be on the table in 25 minutes which is exactly the sort of dish I love for an after work meal.
Based on the traditional chickpea curry recipe of chole, we’ve added a big handful of spinach for that all important extra veg!
Why make this chickpea and spinach curry?
- I love the blend of the spices, tomato and spinach.
- It’s easily adaptable depending on how I feel on the day; sometimes I want a bit of extra heat, so I add some more chili powder, and at other times I’m looking for a milder experience, so I cut down on the spices, and maybe even stir in a little coconut milk to take the edge off the heat.
- It is a simple recipe – only using three Indian spices.
- It’s an economical dish, as the main ingredient is chickpeas – a great value source of protein.
- Its a healthy dish – low carb and low calorie.
This is definitely our Anglicized recipe, rather than truly authentic. Should you want to make it more in touch with its Indian roots you can replace the oil with clarified butter/ghee.
Serve this Indian chickpea curry with tomato and spinach with some plain or pilau rice (we also have an Instant Pot pilau rice recipe), cooked bulgar wheat or naan bread, or just some steamed vegetables. If you like a lot of chilli in your curry, serve cucumber raita on the side for contrast.
Any leftovers can be frozen, but it’s better if you take some out to freeze before you add the spinach, but it is still fine to freeze with the spinach.
Is this Indian Chickpea Curry with Tomato and Spinach similar to Chole?
Chole, also known as chana masala, channay, or chole masala is a chickpea based curry from the Punjab. The main difference between the recipes is that we have added spinach.
How to make Indian Chickpea Curry with Tomato and Spinach
Step one – as always, I recommend measuring out ingredients first.
Step two – heat the oil in a large, heavy bottomed frying pan or skillet. Chop and fry the onion for a few minutes, then crush and add the garlic. Fry until the onion is soft and translucent.
Step three – add the spices, and stir to coat the onion with spice. Continue to cook for a few minutes as the delicious, spicy aroma is released.
Step four – add the canned tomato and tomato puree. Make sure you’ve got all the tomato out of the tin by filling it about 1/3 full of water, swirling it around, and then adding the water to the pan.
Step five – Add the chickpeas, and stir. Turn down the heat under the pan. Cover, and leave the curry to simmer gently for about fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally.
Step six – add the spinach. If you think it will spill out of the pan, stir in half the spinach, cover again and leave for a minute until it wilts. Then add the remaining half, stir in and cook for one more minute.
Step seven – Once ready, garnish with coriander (cilantro) and serve in big bowl or with rice, bulgar wheat, naan bread, or other side dish.
Indian Chickpea Curry with Tomato and Spinach Hints and Tips
- You can substitute ghee for the vegetable oil.
- Leftover fresh ginger can be frozen, and then grated straight from the freezer, with a fine sharp grater, such as a microplane. Simple grate from frozen the next time you use it. It’s a great way of keeping the flavours fresh.
- The drained liquid from the chickpeas is known as aquafaba and makes a fabulous vegan egg white substitute.
- Not all brands of canned chickpeas are equal and the texture straight from the can varies wildly. I use different brands to cook and make hummus with. Experiment until you find a brand that suits your taste.
- I far prefer fresh chillies to dried in this recipe – chop up leftover chillies, free freeze on a silicon mat and pack into a plastic pot once frozen.
- As lovely as unfinished / non coated cast iron cookware is, never use it to cook tomato based dishes as they will taste metallic. Use an enameled or stainless steel pot.
- This recipe freezes well, but it is better to add the spinach when you reheat it. Follow the instructions until step 4 and then pack into plastic boxes, allow to cool and then freeze. To eat, allow to defrost, heat the curry, and then add the spinach leaves and continue heating for a minute or two, until they’re wilted. As always with frozen food make sure it’s piping hot all the way through.
- Add some stock to leftovers and whizz into a tasty soup.
How to add more vegetables!
We love vegetables! My one mantra for a better diet is to add an extra portion of vegetables to every meal whenever I can.
Ideas for packing more vegetables into this chickpea curry include:
- Using different leafy greens – add shredded kale, spring greens, mustard greens, malabar spinach or chard. Cook until wilted.
- Cut butternut squash, pumpkin or sweet potatoes, into 1.5 cm cubes and add along with the chickpeas – cook for about 20 minutes until soft.
- Cut cauliflower or broccoli into bite sized pieces and add a few minutes before the end of cooking time
- Fry chopped bell peppers along with the onions and spices before adding the rest of the ingredients
- Throw in a strained can of sweetcorn along with the leafy greens
- Add chopped okra for the last five minutes of cooking.
Why I don’t recommend buying spices in bulk
I generally don’t buy large packets of spices. It’s easy to find economical packets of spices in our local Indian supermarket, but unless you are using several spoonfuls of them every day, they just go stale before you get through them.
I’ve lost count of the bags of flavourless, fragrance free powders I’ve thrown out over the years – such false economy!
I far prefer buying a premium brand – that tastes better and is more potent (so you use less) that than the mass market brands. You can buy refills to decant into the original glass jars.
Rice dishes to go with a curry
I tend to serve this as is, but it would be delicious with a rice side.
- Nandos rice
- Spicy rice
- Mushroom rice
- Pilau rice (Pressure Cooker Pilau rice)
- Other easy rice recipes
More Curry Recipes
If you love a curry or Indian dish then try one of these
- leftover chicken curry
- leftover lamb curry
- easy tandoori style chicken tikka kebabs
- leftover chicken biryani
- lamb biryani
- turkey biryani
- turkey curry
- lamb keema
- lamb rogan josh
- Other curry recipes
Chole - Indian Chickpea Curry with Tomato & Spinach
Ingredients
- 1 dsp vegetable oil
- 1 onion (peeled & chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (peeled & sliced)
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder (or chopped fresh chillies)
- 1 tsp fresh ginger (finely grated)
- 500 g cooked chickpeas (2 x 400 g cans drained weight)
- 400 g canned tomatoes or passata
- 2 tbs tomato puree
- 150 g baby leaf spinach
- 1 small bunch coriander (if you can't find fresh, use frozen or soak dried coriander before using)
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large skillet and fry the onion and garlic with a generous pinch of salt until soft and translucent.
- Add the spices and fry for a few minutes, stirring all the time,until fragrant.
- Add the canned tomatoes and puree. Fill the tomato can about a third with water, give it a swirl to rinse and add to the pan.
- Add the chickpeas and stir. Turn the heat down, cover and allow to gently simmer for 15 minutes stirring from time to time, until the chickpeas are tender. Add more water if needed.
- Add the spinach and stir in, cover, and allow to cook for another minute.
- Serve immediately garnished with fresh coriander.
Notes
- You can substitute ghee for the vegetable oil.
- Leftover fresh ginger can be frozen, and then grated straight from the freezer. with a fine sharp grater, such as a microplane. Simple grate from frozen the next time you use it. It's a great way of keeping the flavours fresh.
- The drained liquid from the chickpeas is known as aquafaba and makes a fabulous vegan egg white substitute.
- Not all brands of canned chickpeas are equal and the texture straight from the can varies wildly. I use different brands to cook and make hummus with. Experiment until you find a brand that suits your taste.
- I far prefer fresh chillies to dried in this recipe - chop up leftover chillies, free freeze on a silicon mat and pack into a plastic pot once frozen.
- This recipe freezes well, but it is better to add the spinach when you reheat it.  Follow the instructions until step 4 and then pack into plastic boxes, allow to cool and then freeze. To eat, allow to defrost, heat the curry, and then add the spinach leaves and continue heating for a minute or two, until they're wilted. As always with frozen food make sure it's piping hot all the way through.
- Add some stock to leftovers and whizz into a tasty soup.
- Use different leafy greens - add shredded kale, spring greens or chard and cook until wilted.
- Cut butternut squash, pumpkin or sweet potatoes, into 1.5 cm cubes and add along with the chickpeas - cook for about 20 minutes until soft.
- Cut cauliflower or broccoli into bite sized pieces and add a few minutes before the end of cooking time
- Fry chopped bell peppers along with the onions and spices before adding the rest of the ingredients
- Throw in a strained can of sweetcorn along with the leafy greens
- Add chopped okra for the last five minutes of cooking.
- This recipe is 5 Weight Watchers Smart Points per portion.
Update Notes: This recipe was originally posted in January 2007 as Chole, but was rewritten and republished with new photos, step by step instructions and hints & tips in February 2019.
kim
This recipe has so much flavor and it’s so easy! Love it!
Helen
Simple and yet very tasty.
Yasmine Kirkwood
I really really love chickpea curry, so this is wonderful to find. So easy to make and super tasty.
Helen
Chickpea curry is so good.
Isla T
Chickpeas are a great ingredient and I use then a lot for a protein source. This looks like an easy to make and tasty recipe, ideal for a quick meal.
Helen
Really easy to make and very tasty.
Demeter
This is so flavorful and delicious! Love how it’s totally budget friendly. Definitely adding it into our regular rotation.
Helen
Important to consider budget friendly recipes, and keep them tasty too.
Sabrina
My whole family enjoyed this! Such a great idea to freeze leftovers and make preparing lunches for work so much easier.
Helen
I love having ready to go meals in the freezer from leftovers.
Lisa | Garlic & Zest
My husband is big into curry — and I love how healthy this dish is. Bonus that it’s perfect for Meatless Mondays! I just need spinach…
Helen
It is a great meatless meal.
Bhawana
Helen must say you made this chickpea curry beautifully and I am so tempted to have it with Bhatura (Indian deep fried bread). I wish if I can grab it out of screen and just finish it.
Helen
Thank you.
The idea of Bhatura sounds delicious.
Irene L
A delicious sounding recipe Helen, I think we’d really enjoy this.
Helen
It is a very tasty dish.
Paul W
Great idea to liven up the chickpeas. Curry is always popular in our house.
Helen
Such good flavours.
Melanie
A very tasty and flavoursome dish, just the kind of thing I love.
Pheobe T
Chickpeas are so good, and this is a great way to spice them up and make a tasty dinner.
Shivani Raja
I just love how you’ve photographed this – I’ve always wanted to share more Indian recipes on my blog but have been unsure of how to make it look ‘pretty’. Thank you for inspiring me to take the plunge!
Helen
thank you! I think that lots of fresh coriander is always the key!
beverley
This is ideal for a delicious veggie dinner. Full of flavour and nice and easy to make.
Izzy Brown
This is the kind of dish that is so handy to make in advance. It sounds delicious.
Gillian W
Chickpea curry sounds very lovely. A good veggie meal and good for the budget.
Suki
Chickpea curry is something I was taught to make many moons ago. I like to add potato to mine. This looks a very tasty version.
Demeter
This is so flavorful and delicious! Everyone loved it and we’ll be adding into our regular rotation, thanks!
Danielle Wolter
chana masala is one of my all time favorite dishes. chickpeas are just awesome aren’t they? loving that you added spinach to this as well :-)
Jen
I love how budget friendly this dish is without skipping out on any of the flavor! We’re trying to add in more meatless options into our life and this fits perfectly.
Kianne James
What a great idea to make a curry with chickpeas. Wholesome and veggie, perfect in my book.
Chelsea Monk
Nice recipe for a simple and tasty meal. It’s the kind of thing I would eat with a baked potato. Delicious.
Michelle Miller
Perfect combination between the mediterranean and indian flavors. This is an absolute best, I am keeping it to make it very soon! Fresh & clean!
Sam Gilbert
A great recipe for a meat free meal. I have three veggies in our house, and this kind of thing is ideal. I can easily make it in advance and leave it for them to eat when they get in.
Rowan
Great stuff! Substituted half the chickpeas for frozen okra and added a little brown sugar to the sauce, came out great! Cheers Helen