Lentil and Potato Curry (Vegan)

This lentil and potato curry with spinach is delicious, warming and filling. Made with green lentils, potatoes and spinach this vegan and gluten-free curry is great for a tasty weekend dinner.

Jump to:

• 📝 What Do We Need
• 🔪 How To Make It
• 👩‍🍳 Expert Tips
• 📌 Substitutions & Variations
• 📖 FAQs
• 🍽 More Tasty Curry Recipes
• Lentil and Potato Curry

If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know that I'm a big fan of lentils. Being a veggie, they are an important part of my diet. So I add them to as many recipes as I can! We love them in soups, curries and even in pasta!

This potato and lentil curry takes a bit longer than my usual curry recipes but it's definitely worth the wait. The result is a rich Indian style curry that is truly scrumptious!

The spices in this curry are well balanced and the coconut cream adds a lovely cooling effect, making this curry mild enough for the whole family to enjoy it. But if you want it to be hotter I have some tips for you to make that happen!

📝 What Do We Need

• Potatoes - It's important to use a waxy potato for this curry as you want the potato to hold it's shape and not fall apart or break down into mash. I use Desiree potatoes, yukon gold or new potatoes would also work well.
• Lentils - I use canned green or brown lentils for this recipe, but you can use dried red lentils if you want. If you are using dried lentils then you will need to add them eariler so that they cook in the curry.
• Coconut Cream - the smooth, thick and rich consistency of coconut cream is perfect for this curry but you can use coconut milk if you prefer.
• Spinach - fresh is best here but if you only have frozen spinach then use that. I would defrost it and remove and steam if first before stirring it into the curry.
• Spices - there are a lot of spices in this dish, if you make a lot of curries you will likely have most of these already. If you want to avoid buying all the spices new I woud use a curry paste such as rogan josh or tikka masala instead.

🔪 How To Make It

This is just a quick visual step by step guide, please see the recipe card for full instructions.

1. Cook the onions until soft. Meanwhile, toast the cardamom, coriander, mustard, cumin and fennel seeds in a dry pan then use a pestle and mortar to break them down. Once the onion is soft add the garlic and ginger then add all the spices.

2. Next add the chopped potatoes to the pan and make sure they are covered in the spices. Then pour in the chopped (diced) tomatoes plus half a can of water. Stir well and cook for 15 minutes, stirring often.

3. Now add the lentils, stir well.

4. Finally, add the coconut cream and simmer for about 15 - 20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through. Once the potatoes are cooked, stir in the spinach along with a squeeze of lemon juice and check the seasoning. Once the spinach is wilted the curry is ready to serve.

👩‍🍳 Expert Tips

• Toasting the spices whole before you grind them in a pestle and mortar wakes up the spices and hugely improves the flavour of this curry.
• Make sure you cut the potatoes into evenly sized pieces, this will ensure that they are all cooked at the same time. And remember, the smaller you cut the potatoes the quicker they will cook.
• If you want to make this in less time then I recommend par boiling the potatoes first.
• Waxy potatoes can appear hard even when cooked, to check if your potatoes are cooked use a fork or sharp knife to poke one of the potatoes, the knife should slide easily through the potato if cooked.
• If you are using precooked lentils, don't add them too early to the curry as they will just turn to mush. The same goes for dried red lentils, they cook quite quickly so think about the timing when you add them.
• Cover the pan when you are cooking the potatoes, this will help them cook quicker.
• Stir this curry often - the lentils will naturally fall to the bottom of then pan, so stirring will avoid them sticking to the bottom and burning.

📌 Substitutions & Variations

• If you don't have all the spices for this recipe you can use a curry paste instead, rogan josh or tikka masala paste would work really well.
• Don't like lentils? Try cooked chickpeas instead!
• You could also try this with sweet potatoes, you will need to reduce the cooking time though as they cook a lot faster than regular waxy potatoes.
• Want more veggies in this? Add in mushrooms, peppers, peas or aubgerine (eggplant).
• Add kale or cavolo nero instead of spinach, just adapt cooking times to suit.
• Want this curry hotter? Add some chopped green chilli pepper to the dish when you add the garlic and ginger. One chilli should do the trick.

📖 FAQs

🍽 More Tasty Curry Recipes

If you loved this curry then you might want to check out some of my other curry recipes. My Red Lentil Dal has been one of the most popular curries on here since I first published it! Another great vegan curry is my Jackfruit Curry with Sweet Potatoes, this is another very popular curry. Finally, my family's favourite is this Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry, this always goes down a treat.