Coconut Mango Curry with Chickpeas & Vegetables

This creamy sweet tangy coconut mango curry with chickpeas and vegetables has a super easy blender sauce and is easily customizable. It’s even vegan too!

Why you’ll love it:

• It has a creamy sweet decadent curried sauce similar to restaurant-style mango curries.
• It has a no-fuss blender sauce.
• You can use any vegetables you like.
• It’s really easy to customize.
• It cooks up in under 25 minutes.
• It makes six large portions and is perfect for meal-prepping.
• It tastes kind of like McDonald’s curry sauce (in the best way).

Of course, if you love this recipe I also really think you would love my creamy chickpea coconut curry or one of the blog favorites, my chickpea spinach curry. I mean you can never have too many curry recipes!

Ingredients and substitutions

The sauce for this coconut mango curry is super simple to make. If you look at the ingredients in the image below, it does look like an intimidating amount if you look closer you’ll see that many of them are spices. Let’s have a look at which ingredients we can substitute or be a bit flexible with.

Coconut milk: This is what makes the curry so creamy, if you are watching your calories you can substitute with light coconut milk, it will still taste great but be slightly less creamy.

Onion: We use half an onion blended into the sauce which gives it a really wonderful flavor. I slice up the rest of the onion and throw it in later with the rest of the vegetables.

Curry powder: Make sure to use a curry powder mix that you like.

Fresh ginger: If you don’t have any fresh ginger to hand you can substitute this with dried ground ginger, about one teaspoon.

Ground cumin: If you don’t have any ground cumin you can substitute with cumin seeds, just add them to the hot oil later instead of blending with the rest of the sauce, and when sputtering and slightly darker, add in the veggies and proceed with the rest of the recipe.

Oil: You can use any mild flavorless oil (e.g. sunflower or canola) or coconut oil.

Garlic: This is really important for the flavor of the sauce. It’s not an exact substitute as it has a different flavor profile but if you don’t have any fresh garlic you can add a teaspoon of garlic powder to the sauce instead.

Ground coriander: You need lots of this, I don’t recommend omitting or substituting it.

Chickpeas: I love chickpeas and they are great in this curry but you can substitute them with the same amount of any other cooked legume, tofu, or extra veggies. If substituting with tofu I recommend briefly pressing it cutting it into small cubes and dry-frying for a minute or two in a hot skillet or cooking for five minutes on high in an air fryer, to give the outside a little more texture.

Ground turmeric: I love the taste of turmeric and it gives the curry a wonderful color but you can omit this if needed.

Ground clove: Be very exact with measuring this as it’s very strong. It really helps with the restaurant-style taste. If you don’t have any ground cloves you can add three cloves to the oil and cook for about a minute then add in the veggies, however, you will have to find them and fish them out later which can be a bit of a nuisance.

Lime: Totally necessary for finishing off the curry and giving it a nice bright flavor but you can substitute with lemon juice if needed, or reduce the amount to taste.

Vegetables of choice: You’ll need roughly five cups of vegetables. You can use whichever ones you like, I recommend choosing some of these:

• Asparagus
• Broccoli
• Mangetout (snow peas)
• Green beans
• Onion
• Bell peppers
• Beansprouts
• Carrots
• Potatoes

If using carrots make sure to slice them thinly so they cook through. Potatoes should be cut into small cubes and I also briefly cook them in the microwave in a sealed container with a few tablespoons of water until fork tender (around 5-7 minutes on full power). Broccoli florets should be cut into smaller pieces as they take longer to cook.

Mango: You can use fresh or frozen mango, or even mango puree as long as it doesn’t have any added ingredients like salt or sugar. You’ll need around 10.5 ounces (300 grams), which is roughly the same as the flesh from one very large ripe mango. If using frozen, I zap it in the microwave first for about two minutes until it’s soft enough to blend smoothly.

You can also see vegetable stock in the image above. This is actually optional and depends on how thick you like your sauce and how much of it you want.

How to make it

As with any other recipe, it’s best to get all the ingredients together for your coconut mango curry before you start. This section is where I’ll go a little more in-depth and have some photos of the process, so check back in here if you’re not a confident cook or have any doubts.

Otherwise, you can skim this section and head on down to the concise quick recipe card.

First, to make your sauce, peel and halve the onion, peel the garlic and peel the ginger. If you have a world-class food processor you can leave the ginger as is, just peeled, but I don’t and I hate finding tough ginger fibers in my food so I actually finely grate it and throw away the stringy stuff before adding it.

For the mango, you can either use fresh mango or frozen mango. If fresh, peel and slice the flesh away from the stone, if frozen, zap in the microwave for two minutes to soften (it doesn’t have to be completely defrosted).

Add the first nine ingredients to the bowl of a food processor or a high-speed blender (image one below). This should include the mango half of the onion (you can use the other half later with the vegetables), the garlic, the ginger, the ground coriander, cumin, turmeric, curry powder and ground cloves.

Make sure to only use a curry powder you actually like!

Blend or process the mixture until as smooth as possible, then add the coconut milk and blend again until smooth (image two above).

Chop your vegetables and add the oil to a large skillet or wok and heat on high until smoking. Add the vegetables (image three below) and stir-fry for around five minutes until softened (image four). If some are slightly browned that’s fine.

As you know, you can use whatever veggies you want as long as any which take longer to cook (potatoes, carrots, broccoli) are sliced thinly or chopped into small pieces. I used a large carrot cut on the diagonal, mangetout, yellow bell pepper, red bell pepper, and onion.

Add in the blended coconut mango spices mix and the chickpeas to the pan and stir to mix well (image five below). When the mixture is at a lively simmer, lower the heat to medium-high to maintain it and cook for ten minutes, stirring often to prevent any vegetables from sinking to the bottom and sticking and burning.

If you like a thick creamy sauce cook as-is. If you like a looser sauce or more of it, you can add up to a cup of vegetable stock during this cooking stage. In picture six below I had added a cup of stock, but feel free to not add it depending on your personal preference.

When the sauce is finished, add the lime juice and salt to taste. I suggest adding the lime juice first, around a tablespoon, and adding a little more if needed (I usually add one and a half tablespoons), and then the salt.

Although this is a sweet curry, be aware it does need a good bit of salt to balance it out and I usually add one teaspoon (remember this will be divided among six portions).

Serve with steamed rice. I love it with chopped peanuts and red pepper flakes scattered over for a burst of crunch and heat!

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Did you make this mango chickpea curry with vegetables and chickpeas? Let me know how much you loved it with a star rating, review, and/or comment below.

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