Easy Vegan Dal Makhani

After living in India for just over two years I just can’t get enough of lentils, and I’ve been working on this delicious vegan dal makhani recipe for quite a while. The perfect balance between easy and delicious, yet authentic-tasting Indian food.

Why you’ll love it:

This vegan dal makhani (also known as butter lentils) can be made with precooked lentils and kidney beans to speed up what’s normally a lengthy process.

Using pre-cooked legumes will get this recipe ready in just 45 minutes with a minimum of chopping.

Super filling and cheap to make, this homemade version is just as good as a restaurant-style version at a fraction of the price and calories. Ditch the takeaway and wow your family, friends, or guests with this fakeaway!

If you’re like me and you love Indian food, especially easy vegan and vegetarian Indian food, you might want to check out some of my other recipes, or go the whole hog and serve various curries and pretend you’re at a restaurant! Try them out (you won’t be disappointed):

1. Chickpea spinach curry (chana palak), ready in just half an hour!
2. One-pot vegan biryani! No muss, no fuss.
3. Vegan tikka masala – this one is technically a British take on Indian food, but it’s still darn tasty.
4. Easy onion raita – takes just minutes to make.

What to serve it with?

Dal makhani is a filling lentil and kidney bean curry from the north of India and is perfect served with roti or naan bread.

I usually serve curries with Indian flatbreads first to tear off and dip in and scoop up the luscious sauce with, and have steamed basmati rice on standby to mix with any leftover sauce.

You can also add a dollop of plain unsweetened vegan or non-vegan yogurt, or serve tasty raita on the side. Honestly, it’s so rich that a bit of bread and/or rice is all you need.

Ingredients

Check out the image below to check if you have what you need.

I use crushed canned tomatoes, not fresh. If you don’t have cumin seeds you can add ground cumin with the other spices.

This is a very mild curry but you can of course omit the green chili pepper, or substitute it with a red one or a quarter teaspoon of ground cayenne.

The lemon juice should be fresh, not bottled, the coconut milk full-fat, and for the vegan butter, you can use Earth Balance buttery spread or any other plant-based spread that tastes good, including margarine that doesn’t have animal fats in it.

How to make it

Heat the sunflower oil over medium-high heat and add in the cumin seeds when the oil is hot. Let the cumin seeds sputter and brown but don’t let them get too dark (nearly black) as they’ll be bitter.

If you don’t have cumin seeds or just plain forget to add them in first, you can substitute by adding ground cumin with the other spices later.

When the seeds have browned, add in the chopped onions and stir well. Fry until the onions are golden and tinged brown at the edges, as in the photo below. Stir often to prevent them from burning. Then add in the crushed garlic and finely chopped green chili.

Fry for two minutes until the garlic doesn’t smell “raw” anymore. Next add in the ground ginger, ground coriander, turmeric, ground cinnamon, ground clove, and ground nutmeg, as in the photo below.

For the ground cinnamon, clove and nutmeg you’ll either want to add in a healthy pinch or if they are stored in the little jars with holes, two shakes.

Mix very well and fry another two minutes, at which point you should be able to smell the deliciously toasted spices and it should look like the image below.

At this point, you’ll need to add in the cooked lentils and kidney beans. An authentic dal makhani is normally cooked slowly for many hours (indeed I’ve had the pleasure of tasting two-day dal makhani in India).

I have TOTALLY cheated by using precooked lentils and kidney beans in this recipe to make it faster.

I can’t get precooked black lentils here in Spain, so I’ve used some hearty brown lentils instead. However, I do recommend using cooked black lentils if you can get them. I’ve also made this recipe with soaked brown or black beluga lentils in the pressure cooker.

If you wish to use dried lentils in the pressure cooker or instant pot you can do so easily and I’ll give instructions below.

Add in the cooked lentils and kidney beans and mix well. Next add the pureed tomatoes, water, and vegetable stock.

If you’re using precooked beans and lentils, you’re going to want to simmer them on medium-high for ten minutes, on medium for ten minutes, and then add the salt and simmer a further ten minutes on a low-medium heat until they resemble the photo below and look a little dry.

Like risotto, you’ll need to keep an eye on your lentils and stir them often, or they will stick and burn to the bottom of the pan.

If in doubt, cook less time and check. You can always cook more, but burnt lentils are hard to recover from.

Bear in mind that if you use dried lentils and cook via the stovetop/pressure cooker/instant pot method, once cooked add the salt and you’ll still need to cook them down over a low-high heat stirring often until they look like the picture below.

Once the lentils are cooked down, add the coconut cream, lemon juice, garam masala and cook for a further two minutes before mixing in the chopped fresh cilantro. Mix well and serve, enjoy!

Frequently Asked Questions

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