The best One-Pot chickpea curry for weight loss

A hearty, warming curry is a dish sure to help you cosy up amid a surprise storm outside. Most chickpea curry recipes employ a lot of different, high-fat ingredients to ensure they deliver flavour, but this one doesn’t!

Aside from a tiny amount of low-calorie spray at the beginning of cooking, this dish is incredibly low in fat, meaning it has fewer than 300 calories per portion! If you follow Slimming World, Weight Watchers (WW), Noom or any other weight loss plan you can usually enjoy this within your allowances.

The key to this recipe is in chopping everything finely, and not being afraid to let your stew simmer for as long as it needs. If you leave all your gorgeous ingredients in the dish and let them bubble for fifteen minutes or more, you’re sure to end up with an aromatic, gently spiced curry.

Getting the chickpea curry base flavours perfect

First of all, you need to finely dice the onion and garlic, before allowing them to heat through and gently fry in your pan. They’ll be done when they’re just starting to turn translucent.

The next step is to add in your finely chopped ginger, along with your spices. Allowing this mixture to thoroughly heat through and become aromatic is very important.

This process, known as blooming, allows fragrant ingredients in your dish to release their oils into the sauce early in the cooking process, ensuring their taste is distributed throughout the whole meal.

It’s important to ensure that you chop your ginger finely. A lot of recipes will insist that it’s best to grate your ginger, which can work well, but I find I get greater control with a sharp knife than with a grater. That said, the choice is yours!

Before we move on a word on peeling ginger. There are a million and one methods out there to peel the skin off your ginger before you cook with it, and the most popular way is to use a teaspoon to, essentially, scrape off the skin.

I’ve never had success with this, and I prefer to simply chop away the outer layer of skin with a knife. If you’ve got any other ways that are easy but still retain a lot of your ingredients, then let me know!

Blooming can be an important part of a wide variety of different curry dishes, so ensure that you don’t skip it.

Adding the other ingredients

The next step is to add all of your tomatoes, lentils, and non-fat greek-style yoghurt. There are lots of variations in those ingredients, but I’ve found the most success with tinned tomatoes, split red lentils, and thick, set fat-free yoghurt.

The number one reason that I’ve enjoyed using those ingredients is ease: it’s simply quicker and easier for me to open a tin of tomatoes than it is for me to dice a few up. Plus, tinned ingredients will keep longer, and can be just as tasty!

Make sure to give all those ingredients a good mix to make sure that they’re all homogeneous, and there are no big clumps of yoghurt or lentil in the pot. I added a little bit of water here, as my lentils weren’t completely covered, but it wasn’t needed in the end.

Letting the flavours work

Then, cover and simmer for roughly fifteen minutes, or until the lentils are soft and tender. There’s nothing worse than badly cooked lentils.

Undercooked, they’re crunchy and hard, but overcooked, they’re mushy and sticky. They’re an easy ingredient to get right, and they definitely add a lot to the dish overall.

Then, add in your broccoli florets, and cook them for a further four minutes. You want the tips of the florets to be tender, but the stems still have a little bite to them: this texture difference can really enhance your meal.

The final touches

When your broccoli is well-cooked, you can add in your chickpeas, spinach, and lemon juice. They’ll need cooking for roughly three minutes, or until the spinach has wilted into the dish.

I used lime juice here, as I had a spare one that needed using, and it gave the dish a nice kick! Lemon works well here because it adds a floral note which is enhanced by the ginger, while lime works as it has a sharp quality, which pairs very well with the broccoli.

Serving the Chickpea curry

Once you’re satisfied that your spinach is wilted, feel free to serve it! You could top it with a little extra yoghurt, or some freshly chopped coriander, but I was far too hungry to wait that long.

If you wanted to do sides, this dish would pair well with lemon and ginger rice. That said, because of the lentils throughout the dish, it doesn’t need anything else!

A bowl will keep you full on less than 300 calories!

Other recipes you will love

If you have enjoyed this chickpea curry recipe then do check out my other curry recipes here. I also have a guide to using chickpeas and chickpea recipes that could help you make more tasty meals like this!

It can be difficult to find healthy meals you enjoy as a vegan or vegetarian, check out all these recipes including Spanish chickpeas, Gardener’s pie and cauliflower and chickpea curry.

Why not check out my ready-made meal plan directory to get you on track? I even have a meal plan full of one-pot meals so less washing up!

Here are some other recipes I think you will love.

Weight loss and Exercise Support

I have a lot of weight loss guides and support if you want to exercise including if you have a condition like fibromyalgia.

Have a good look around and see how I can help you achieve your weight loss goals. Request my free resources to get you started too!

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