Vegan daal and sweet potato curry
This vegan daal and sweet potato curry is nourishing, spicy, comfort. Pour on top of rice or mop up with flatbread for a deliciously healthy meal.
A Tiny Bit Vegan daal and sweet potato curry
A daal curry is always so delicious and dependable. Lentils are budget and store cupboard friendly and if you have red or yellow lentils to hand, you can whip up a nutritious bowl of deliciousness in no time at all.
This recipe goes a step further by adding some chunks of sweet potato into the lentils, adding more texture, flavour, and all the nutrient benefits sweet potatoes have to offer.
If you’re batch cooking for the autumn or winter, this is a great recipe to have. Make a batch on Sunday and it’ll keep you going until Wednesday. In terms of freezing this curry; sure, the sweet potato goes a bit mushy, but the flavour and convenience outweigh that – in my view anyway.
And if you’re looking for more recipes like this, you may also enjoy our saag chana daal recipe which is a combo of chunky yellow lentils and spinach.
Made this recipe? Let us know how it turned out in the comments section at the bottom of this page.
Recipe highlights
- Cheap and easy to make and no pressure cooker required
- Double or triple the recipe for batch cooking
- Although not essential, soaking your lentils for an hour will speed up the cooking process
- You can adjust the spice to your liking
- Versatile – serve as a main or a side if it’s a special meal
- Stored in an airtight container, it will keep well in the fridge for three days
- Freeze any left overs into single portions to have a nutritious curry whenever you want!
Ingredients you’ll need to make this vegan daal and sweet potato curry
Sunflower oil – you’ll need cooking oil to brown your onion and slightly cook off your garlic and ginger.
Dried yellow spilt lentils – this is now readily available in most large grocery stores and of course smaller Asian food shops. You need to give lentils a really good wash. The best way is to pop what you need into a bowl, add cold tap water until they are covered, then swish them about with your hand and drain. Repeat a few times until the water is clear.
Dried red spilt lentils – these look pretty much the same as the yellow lentils but are more of an orange colour. We’ll be mixing the two together so you can do the washing and soaking in the same bowl.
Yellow and red lentils together produce a lovely creamy texture and buttery flavour.
Sweet potato – you’ll need a medium sweet potato – just one. Be mindful that they start getting black spots as soon as they’re peeled and exposed to air so save peeling it until you’re ready to add it to the cooking pot.
White onion – we usually use red onions but as this is quite a pale coloured curry, cooked red onions don’t look so pretty in here. Stick to white or brown onion this time.
Tinned tomatoes – you can use a couple of fresh tomatoes if you have them, otherwise you’ll need just around a quarter of a 400g can of tomatoes to make the base for this curry.
Spices – we stick to salt, turmeric, garam masala and and chilli powders for this recipe. We also use a very small amount of cumin seeds.
Garlic – the fresher the garlic, the better. Avoid using garlic that’s been hanging out in your fridge for months. Even if it looks okay, sometimes the taste deteriorates into a not-so-nice earthy flavour that can be overpowering and spoil your dish. We peel then grate garlic on a little nutmeg grater but you can use a press or chop it really finely.
Ginger – again stick to fresh ginger and not the ready-made paste or powder.
Red and green chillies – chillies really add to the flavour of this recipe. But you don’t want the hot type. Choose sweet red and/or green chillies.
Fresh coriander – this is optional but it does add a lovely splash of colour and flavour.
Fresh lemon – this is again optional but a squeeze of lemon really brings out the flavour of this curry. Chose an unwaxed lemon to keep things vegan-friendly.
Ingredients you’ll need to make our daal and sweet potato curry
4 tablespoons sunflower oil
100g yellow split lentils (thoroughly washed)
100g red split lentils (thoroughly washed)
1 medium sweet potato
1 medium white onion roughly chopped
130g tinned tomatoes
2 red and/or sweet green chillies finely chopped
4 garlic cloves finely grated
1 teaspoon fresh ginger finely grated
1 teaspoon chilli powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
Handful fresh coriander (finely chopped)
½ fresh lemon
Kettle full of boiled water to use throughout the cooking process
How to make our vegan daal and sweet potato curry
This really is very easy!
- In a frying pan heat the sunflower oil and add the cumin seeds. Give them a minute to infuse the oil – be careful, they may pop and splatter the oil.
- Add the onions and brown until they are caramelised.
- Now add the ginger and garlic and fry them only for about 2 minutes – you don’t want them to brown.
- Add the tinned tomatoes, let them heat through then tip in all the spices. Cook for about five minutes, moving the mixture around all the time. Add a splash of water from your kettle if you need to loosen it up.
- Add the lentils and then let them pick up the flavour for 8-10 minutes. Frequently move them around so they don’t stick.
- Now add water from your kettle until the lentils are just covered, put a lid on the pan and allow them to cook for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, peel and chop your sweet potato into one-inch pieces.
- Carefully add the pieces of sweet potato into your curry, give it a stir and pop the lid back on until the sweet potatoes are cooked. This will take about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Once the potatoes are cooked add the chopped coriander and chopped chillies. Give everything a gentle stir then add a couple of tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
- Carefully give your curry a taste – now’s the time to add more salt or lemon juice if you want to.
- Enjoy!
How to serve this daal and sweet potato curry
If this is going to be served as a main meal, my favourite way to eat it is with garlic naan or roti and some crunchy veggies like radishes. But it works well with rice and a salad too.
How to store your daal and sweet potato curry
This is great to make a day or two ahead – the flavour will just improve. Once cooled, place it into an airtight container before storing it in the fridge.
All daal freezes brilliantly but as this has sweet potato in it, that will lose its texture. For me, this isn’t a big deal because it still tastes delicious. If you don’t mind that and want to freeze it, once cooled, put it in either an airtight container, or what I love to do, is portion it in food bags, then I can take just the number of portions I need and I have access to delicious daal in minutes! It defrosts in the microwave brilliantly without compromising the flavour.
Vegan Daal and Sweet Potato Curry
Equipment
- 1 medium/large cooking pot with lid
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp sunflower oil (or any other cooking oil)
- 100g yellow split lentils (thoroughly washed)
- 100g red split lentils (thoroughly washed)
- 1 medium sweet potato
- 1 medium white onion (finely diced)
- 130g tinned tomatoes
- 2 and/or sweet green chillies (finely diced)
- 4 cloves fresh garlic (finely grated, chopped or pressed)
- 1 tsp freshly ginger (finely grated)
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 2 tsp garam masala powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 handful fresh coriander (finely chopped)
- 1/2 fresh lemon (juice only)
- Kettle full of boiled water to use throughout the cooking process
Instructions
- In a frying pan heat the sunflower oil and add the cumin seeds. Give them a minute to infuse the oil – be careful, they may pop and splatter the oil.
- Add the onions and brown until they are caramelised.
- Now add the ginger and garlic and fry them only for about 2 minutes – you don’t want them to brown.
- Add the tinned tomatoes, let them heat through then tip in all the spices. Cook for about five minutes, moving the mixture around all the time. Add a splash of water from your kettle if you need to loosen it up.
- Add the lentils and then let them pick up the flavour for 8-10 minutes. Frequently move them around so they don’t stick.
- Now add water from your kettle until the lentils are just covered, put a lid on the pan and allow them to cook for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, peel and chop your sweet potato into one-inch pieces.
- Carefully add the pieces of sweet potato into your curry, give it a stir and pop the lid back on until the sweet potatoes are cooked. This will take about 15 to 20 minutes
- Once the potatoes are cooked add the chopped coriander and chopped chillies. Give everything a gentle stir then add a couple of tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
- Carefully give your curry a taste – now’s the time to add more salt or lemon juice if you want to then enjoy!
