Cashew butter chickpea curry
A creamy, wholesome, quick curry with sweet potato, spinach and chickpeas
Another recipe for my 20 minute meals series, and this one is the most delicious, comforting vegan curry, with a special ingredient to make it creamy and nutty - cashew butter. I don’t know why I’ve never thought to add it to curries before…
Cashew butter is silky, creamy and slightly sweet. My personal favourite is the M&S one but any cashew butter will work, or peanut butter if you can’t get any.
Veg wise I went for sweet potato, cauliflower and spinach, but you can mix it up - squash, white potatoes, broccoli, kale, cabbage - anything goes really.
Tip for coconut milk: I use the hard creamed coconut blocks instead of tins, which I melt down into a milk with boiling water. Not only is it cheaper and takes up less room in the cupboards, but some of the tins have unnecessary added ingredients in them. It also means you don’t risk wasting half a tin if a recipe doesn’t need the whole thing.
Serve with rice or naan bread for a seriously good midweek meal.
You’ll need (serves 2)
1/2 onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small piece of ginger, finely chopped or grated
1 tbsp curry powder
1 small or 1/2 large sweet potato (approx 120g), cut into small chunks (they do need to be small to cook quick enough - about 1.5cm cubes)
1/4 cauliflower (approx 120g), cut into bitesized pieces
1 tin (or 300g jarred) chickpeas
200ml coconut milk (or 40g hard coconut cream mixed with 160ml boiling water)
2-3 tbsp cashew butter
Large handful spinach
Fry the onion in a little oil on a medium heat for 5 min while you prepare the rest of the veg.
To the onion, add the garlic and ginger and fry for a minute or so before adding the curry powder. Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes then add the sweet potato, cauliflower, chickpeas (and their liquid) and coconut milk. Season with salt and pepper. Add about 200ml of water (or half the chickpea tin) of water and bring to a boil. Then reduce to a medium heat and cook for 10 minutes. If it looks dry at any point, add a little more water.
Add the cashew butter and mix well. Taste and add more if you want it to be richer. Add the spinach and wilt it in. Taste and adjust seasoning to taste.
Serve with rice or naan. Dig in.
