The Creamy Sweet Potato, Chickpea and Spinach Korma is an insanely rich and flavourful dish, perfect for when you’re craving an amazing curry. Completely vegan and packed with veg, everyone will love this beautiful dish.
I grew up eating curry quite a lot – be it from a takeaway, homemade, or at one of the many indian restaurant my family frequently visited. But, I always opted for the spicier options – like madras, or tikka masala. I’d never even considered a korma before, deeming it too mild and boring without having even tried it before. So when I tried it for the first time as an adult many years later, I was completely shocked by what I had been missing out on.
In a modern British curry house, you’ll typically find korma containing chicken. Although you could use your favourite chicken sub if you wanted to mimic the taste (I’ve previously used THIS isn’t chicken in my currys, much to my partner’s approval), I like to keep it simple with chickpeas and veg. With recipes like this, you can easily adapt the veg you use with what you have in the fridge – things like cauliflower and peppers would lend themselves beautifully to a dish like this.
Indian cuisine is extremely vast and diverse, encapsulating many regional and traditional cuisines. It’s had a huge impact and influence on many other cuisines across the world – especially Britain, where curry restaurants are some of the most popular, especially in the town where I live! This Korma is heavily inspired by the style you would find at your favourite takeaway, but just that little bit more special.
Key Ingredients
The Veg
I often opt to use veg and legumes in place of meat substitutes in dishes like this. The wonderfully aromatic and deep flavours from the spices, combined with the richness from the coconut and almonds compliments the fresh veg beautifully. I use fresh spinach, tinned chickpeas, and a medium sized sweet potato here. Peel and dice your sweet potato into bitesize chunks to make sure it’s beautifully cooked and tender by the time the curry has finished cooking. When chopping the onion, be sure to chop it as finely as you possibly can – you want it to really soften and almost melt into the dish. Also, I like to blend the tin of chopped tomatoes to make it extra smooth, but this is a personal preference – you can do whatever you want.
The Aromatics
This is wonderfully simply, using just garlic, ginger and a chilli. Even then, you could leave out the chilli if you wanted a super mild dish. You could finely grate the garlic and ginger, but I prefer to blitz them into a paste with a splash of water to get the curry nice and smooth.
The Spices
Again, this is quite a simple selection of spices, but don’t let that fool you. You’ll start off with the whole spices, and sizzle them in oil before anything else to get the flavours out. If you’re cooking this for children, you may want to remove the cardamons before serving. I find it easiest to do this once the onions have finished frying, before adding the aromatics. You’ll then be using ground spices, consisting of Cumin, Coriander, and turmeric. For the best flavour, you’d want to toast and grind your own cumin and coriander seeds, but this recipe will still be super tasty using the pre ground stuff that you find in supermarkets. You’ll finish it off with some Garam Masala towards the end of cooking. You want to add this closer to the end of the cooking time so that you preserve the aroma and taste of this amazing spice mix
Coconut and Almonds
The coconut milk and ground almonds are what gives this gorgeous curry its signature flavour and richness, I don’t recommend skipping or substituting either of these ingredients!
Not only do I highly recommend this amazing Creamy Sweet Potato, Chickpea and Spinach Korma, but I’d also recommend that you explore the vast world of Indian cuisine. It lends itself so beautifully to the vegan diet, and is full of such variety and complex flavours that you’ll never get bored. If you give this a go, I’d love to see it! Please do tag me on your social media posts and stories so that I can take a look!
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 Onion, finely chopped
- 4-5 Cloves of Garlic
- 1 Thumb size piece of ginger
- 1 Red chilli
- 4 Cardamom pods
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tbsp Ground Cumin
- 1 tbsp Ground Coriander
- 1 tsp Turmeric
- 400 g Tin Chopped Tomatoes
- 400 ml Tin Coconut milk
- 1 Medium Sweet potato, diced
- 400 g Tin of Chickpeas, drained
- 100 g Spinach
- 50 g Ground Almonds
- 1 tsp Garam Masala
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Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add in the whole spices, and give it a good stir until they're nice and fragrant.
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Add in the chopped onion, and give it a good stir to coat it all in oil. Put the lid on the pan, and reduce the heat to low. Cook it for 10 minutes, stiring occasionally regularly, until the onions have beautifully softened.
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Remove the lid, and continue to gently fry the onions to get them even softer, until they've turned a light brown.
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While the onions are cooking, peel and grate the garlic and ginger. Alternatively, you can peel and chop the garlic and ginger, and blitz them into a paste with a splash of water. I use my hand blender for this, but you could equally use a mini food processor.
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Turn up the heat to medium-high, and add in the chopped chilli, and your prepared garlic and ginger. Give it a good stir, and cook for about a minute, or until the raw garlic smell disappears. Add a splash of water at any point if it looks a bit dry or might burn.
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Add in the ground cumin, ground coriander, and the ground turmeric, and stir throughly.
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Add in the chopped tomatoes, a dash of salt, and optionally a pinch of sugar. Bring it to a boil, and then turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 5 minutes, stiring regularly to ensure it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan.
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Add in your tin of coconut milk, and stir until well combined. Add in the drained chickpeas, the diced sweet potato and all of the spinach. Stir through continuously and bring to a simmer, until the spinach has fully wilted down into the curry.
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Turn the heat down to low, and place the lid on the saucepan not quite on, allowing some steam to escape. Simmer for 12 minutes, stirring frequently.
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Remove the lid, and add in the ground almonds and garam masala. Stir through, and continue to simmer with the lid off for a further 10 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are tender and cooked through.
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Give the curry a quick taste, and adjust the seasoning as you deem necessary.
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Serve! I like to serve this on a bed of fluffy rice, or with a vegan naan bread – or both, if I'm feeling luxurious!
For an extra creamy curry, stir in 2-3 tbsp of your favourite plant based cream substitute.
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