No Effort Vegan Coconut Curry
- Updated on Sep 13, 2017
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You’d think I’d be bored of talking about curry by now. But I’m really, absolutely, definitely not.
In my humble opinion, curry is one of the greatest dishes this world has ever seen – with varieties so wildly different you could eat a new one every day and never sample them all.
This vegan coconut curry is one to add to the ‘must eat’ list.
A LOT of recipes get tried and tested for this website, and many get discarded or fall by the wayside in favour of something bigger, or bolder, or generally more exciting.
Taste alone isn’t always enough to guarantee a spot on the site (although it really helps) – a recipe needs to stand out in other ways.
What makes this vegan coconut curry so special?
The joy of this recipe is its simplicity. So rarely have we had do to do so little cooking to get such a great result.
After a little prepping at the beginning, the ingredients hit the frying pan – and that’s it! They’ll fry along happily while the sauce pretty much cooks itself.
It doesn’t get any easier when it comes to effort vs quality ratio.
This is one recipe I’ve taken to cooking over and over; it gives me my curry fix with such ease I just can’t get enough.
Know your paste!
Most curries are made in one of two ways – with curry spices (often in the form of powder, at least in the Western world) or with a curry paste.
Typically, Indian-style curries use spices or powder, and Thai-type recipes use paste, although not exclusively so.
Curry powders generally contain spices and ingredients like cumin, coriander, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, pepper and chili powders (check out this article for a more extensive list.)
Pastes are usually made from fresh ingredients like chillies, lemongrass, garlic and ginger, as well as the addition of some of the spices above. They’re often mixed with oil too.
Curry paste tends to be the stronger of the two, however that can vary as well. Usually yellow curry pastes are the mildest in flavour, red is next, and green is the hottest.
Vegans and vegetarians should watch out – many curry pastes contain fish derivatives and it’s always worth checking the label first.
With curry powders, the lighter, yellowy colours denote a mild dish, while dark or even brown colours mean a much more spicy kick.
Curry spices are great for giving that Indian-esque taste to every bite; curry pastes are excellent to mix with coconut milk. This vegan coconut curry uses both.
By doing this we get an Indian-feel recipe and flavour with a more creamy, rich, and slightly sweet sauce. It’s the best of both worlds.
Enjoy this stress-free curry with ease – just thank these two wonderful cuisines for their collaboration!
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown rice
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup broccoli (or use green beans)
- 1 spring onions
- 1 sweet potato
- 2 carrot
- ½ zucchini
- 2 sticks lemongrass
- 2 tsp curry powder
- 1 tbsp yellow curry paste (or red for hotter, green for hottest!)
- 1 can coconut milk
- 1 can chickpeas (15 oz = 435g, drained and rinsed)
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 lemon (juiced; lime works too!)
Optional:
- ½ cup cashews (roasted; or use peanuts)
Instructions
- If serving with rice, get that cooking now according to package instructions.
- Grate the sweet potato and the carrots.
- Chop the spring onion, broccoli, and zucchini.
- Add the olive oil to a large pan and fry all the veg on a medium heat. This needs about 5-7 minutes.
- Next, add the curry powder and curry paste, and the beaten (smack it with a heavy spoon a few times to let out the flavour) lemongrass.
- Drain and rinse the chickpeas.
- Stir and fry for another couple of minutes then add the coconut milk, chickpeas, lemon juice, maple syrup and salt. Let it simmer for another 5 minutes.
- Alright, that's it. Take out the lemongrass. Serve with rice and top with roasted cashews or peanuts. Easy. Awesome.
NOTES
Nutrition
Comments
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60 comments
So good, I’ve been looking for a good veggie curry that was also easy to make. It was a big hit with the family. I added a little cinnamon and it came out so good.
Niceee, really glad you and your family enjoyed this one, Jon!!
This recipe was flavorful. I had to use additional curry powder as I couldn’t find paste locally. I think this may have reduced the amount of sauce we had. I used green onions in lieu of spring onion as I could not locate that either. I like the ideas others have mentioned of adding garlic and reducing the lemon to spice things up. Overall, thumbs and forks up!
Thanks for the detailed review, Jennifer! I think a paste deffo makes a noticable difference in comparison to powder. Glad you liked the curry 🙂
About how much is a serving? 1 cup? 1.5 cups? Tried this. It’s delicious and want to make it for my friends
Hi Octavia! Really glad you enjoyed it. If you look at the recipe card, there is a little button you can press to make the recipe suitable for more or less people. This recipes make enough for about 4 people as default (with one cup of rice). I hope that helps!
What a fantastic recipe… saving this one to my regular rotation. Next time I’ll use a bigger frying pan as I didn’t realise just how much 2 grated carrots and a grated sweet potato would amount to. Never had cashews in a meal before, not really a big fan of them, but in this they were delicious… also used the zest and juice of a lime, as I couldn’t get lemongrass… definitely making this again soon.
Thank you! Really glad you enjoyed it. Haha yes, they can be deceptive indeed :D. I find the second time making a recipe is usually easier/better – your version already sounds great anyway. See you around 🙂
I absolutely loved this recipe and how easy it was! I added a bit of red pepper to the veggie mix and it seems like most veggies would work. It did turn out a bit watery (still tasted great) and I’m not sure how to prevent that from happening again!
I’m really pleased you enjoyed it, Annie! I would say the watery element is probably beacuse of the coconut milk. I would suggest trying one of two things. 1) a different coconut milk – one that is a bit thicker and creamier. 2) simmer the curry for a few minutes longer to let the sauce reduce. This should definitely help it get a bit thicker and less watery. Guten Appetit!
Nice one, I haven’t tried grating veggies into curries before and it worked really well to bulk it up, so will be trying out variations on this in future. I love sour flavours so added tamarind paste in addition to lemon, fish sauce (sorry I’m neither vegan nor veggie) and left out the maple syrup as the coconut milk seemed sweet enough.
Hey Alan, glad you enjoyed! Haha no apologies needed, and it sounds like it was really successful anyway. Enjoy your future versions too!
Just made this today! So yummy and creamy with a nice heat! I used Kolhapuri Jaggery in place of maple sugar and potatoes instead of sweet potatoes. It’s what I had on hand along with fresh ginger and some citrus from squeezed lemon limes!
So good!
Awesome Lisa! Sounds like great substitutes, it’s definitely a solid recipe 🙂
Can this be made ahead of time and re-heated?
Yes, for sure! Just make sure it’s steaming when reheated (especially the rice). You could also freeze it and reheat if you wanted to make it more than a day or so ahead of time 🙂