Finally – a chickpea recipe worth making!!! With a simple coconut curry sauce made with astonishingly few ingredients, this Brazilian Chickpea Curry transforms lifeless cans of chickpeas into something that sounds exotic, smells enticing, and tastes so, so good….
This is a recipe we regularly make at our food bank, RecipeTin Meals, because it ticks a lot of boxes:our patrons love it, it’s easy to scale up, economical, gluten-free, freezes perfectly!
Brazilian Chickpea Curry
The sauce for this curry is swiped from Brazilian Fish Stew, a traditional Brazilian dish that’s been a reader favourite for many years now. It tastes like a coconut curry, yet it’s made with just 2 spices – paprika and cumin. Far simpler than most of the from-scratch curry pastes I’ve shared over the years!
That fish stew really is all about that sauce, so it was inevitable that I’d start playing around with other ways to use it. Chicken – done. Shrimp/prawns – a winner.
And it turns out it can also totally transform a dull looking can of chickpeas into something totally fabulous!!
What you need for Brazilian Chickpea Curry
Here’s what you need.
Just a few notes on some of the ingredients:
Chickpeas – canned for convenience, dried if you prefer (directions in notes)
Cayenne pepper is optional – it’s for a kick of spice. Because, well, you know. Curry. Spicy.
Coriander haters – sub with chives.
Baby Spinach – it’s just to cram some extra greens in. Sub with kale or anything leafy that’s wiltable.
How to make this Chickpea Curry
All in one pot – and it comes together quickly. Once you sauté the onion, garlic and capsicum, you literally just dump everything else in then leave to simmer for 10 minutes to let the sauce thicken.
That is one mighty delicious bowl for something that requires relatively little effort with a “normal” ingredients list.
It’s got a nice workflow flow to it as well. There’s no need to measure out all the spices etc before you start cooking. You pop open the cans and dump them into the pot. Then just measure the spices straight from the jar into the pot.
Oh – speaking of “pot” – I keep saying “pot” even though you see a skillet in the photos and video. The skillet I used was too small – I had to stir the sauce so carefully to avoid spillage.
Don’t make my mistake. Use a pot so you can stir enthusiastically and with abundance. – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Brazilian Coconut Chickpea Curry
Ingredients
Chickpea Curry:
- 1.5 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion , finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 red capsicum/bell peppers , cut into 3 x 0.75cm / 1.25 x 1/3″” strips
- 2 cans chickpeas , drained (Note 1)
- 400ml/14oz coconut milk , full fat for best flavour (Note 2)
- 400ml/14oz can crushed tomato
- 1 cup (250ml) chicken or vegetable stock/broth , low sodium
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 1/2 – 1 tsp cayenne pepper (adjust spiciness to taste)
- 1.5 tsp sugar (any type)
- 0.5 tsp salt
- 50g / 2oz baby spinach leaves (or kale)
Finishing & Serving:
- 3 tbsp coriander/cilantro , roughly chopped, plus more for serving (Note 3)
- 1 tbsp lime juice , plus extra wedges for serving
- Yogurt (optional)
- Rice – or something to soak up the sauce (Note 4)
Instructions
- Heat oil in a pot or large deep skillet over high heat. Add garlic and onion, cook for 1 minute.
- Add capsicum, cook for 2 minutes until onion is translucent and slightly golden on edges.
- Add remaining Curry ingredients except baby spinach. Stir, bring to simmer then lower to medium low so it’s simmering gently.
- Simmer 12 – 15 minutes until it changes from pale pink to an orangey red colour.
- Stir in spinach until just wilted, then stir in coriander and lime juice. Add more salt it needed.
- Serve over rice with a dollop of yogurt, extra sprinkle of coriander and squeeze of lime (don’t go overboard, I often do and it’s too sour!)
Recipe Notes:
- STOVE: soak overnight in lots of water. Pick out anything that doesn’t look like chickpeas that floats to the surface. Place in a saucepan with 3 cups of water and simmer on medium for 40 – 50 minutes (depends on chickpea size) until they are very soft. Skim off any skin that floats to the surface. Drain, proceed with recipe.
- PRESSURE COOKER: No soaking required, cover with 3 cups of water and cook 45 minutes on high.
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
You’d think I had a stash of treats in my slippers or something, the way he was snuffling around inside it! (Just to confirm, I did not)
Hubby and I loved this dish! After reading the comments, I didn’t add lime directly to the pot, but we had a wedge on the side. I’m so glad I did that because it was nice to have a few bites with and without the lime.
I’m also so glad that it didnt turn out soupy as some others have commented. I followed the recipe (minus the lime) and it was a perfect consistency!
We will most definitely be making this again
I regret adding the 1tbsp of lime juice as it made it sour. The sauce was amazing without the lime juice, so next time I will omit it entirely. As other commenters have said, there indeed is a lot of liquid with all the given quantities and it took over 35 mins to reduce completely and thicken; next time I will not put the 250ml of liquid stock, instead I will just crumble a stock cube into the pot as the tomatoes and coconut milk provide enough liquid. I also didn’t have fresh coriander to add, so I stirred 1 tbsp of dried coriander leaves to the curry and it tasted great. I didn’t not enjoy yoghurt on it, it just didn’t compliment it at all. Rather, sour cream would have been better like on chili con carne ect. I will give the sour cream a go tomorrow. All in all, I need to make a few little tweaks next time and this will be part of my regular meal rotation. Thanks for the recipe, Nagi! 🙂
Delicious and easy. Will make it again.
This recipe is the absolute best. It is so easy and very quick to make. We loved it.
Absolutely delicious!! Will definitely be on rotation!!
This is so delicious and just to make it even better, so quick to whip up on a weeknight. We serve this with rice and Nagi’s naan bread. Even my 16 month old daughter devours this. Fabulous!
This is a great new dish for our house, i like trying something a bit different. The flavour was great but I ended up with too much liquid sauce which was very watery. I let it reduce down for longer than the recipe and even added cornflour at the end but I still had soup. Delicious soup though! I’ll make again but this time reduce the amount of liquid added.
Had some people for dinner and one was vegan. I needed a main dish that everyone would like and trusted you. This recipe hit it out of the park. Thank you so much. Everyone raved.
I was looking for something I could throw together quickly and had ingredients I had on hand and this one worked. I actually threw everything (except the spinach) in the crockpot (substituted one can of chickpeas for a chopped up chicken breast), doubled the seasonings because we like richly flavorful meals, added some hot curry powder and cooked on low for 6-7 hours, adding the spinach as the rice started cooking. Very good – easy to double/triple if serving for guests. Thanks!
I cooked this last night, it was super easy and really really good!
Had last minute additional guests and needed to bulk up this dish. Added cod and shrimp, almost making the Brazilian Fish Stew! Added some cauliflower rice too.
Nagi, this is phenominal! Earth shatteringly good!! This and your roast veggie lasagne are my go-to for when I have vegetarian friends over… and any other day!
My only tip: I always use organic chick peas (there’s a noticeable difference)
Keep doing exactly what you’re doing, im yet to cook a recipe of yours that isnt insanely good. ×
Made a double batch of this and didn’t regret. We had it for a few days in a row for both lunches and dinners and didn’t get bored. Mostly ate it with rice and boiled eggs on the side, delicious!
If you are reading this and you are a fellow chickpea hater, but wandering if this recipe is going to hide them well enough, your answer is yes. Substituted 1 can of chickpeas with thawed choped cauliflower and as per suggestion I used kale instead of spinach as it is what I had at home. Honestly so so delicious! Will definitely make it again!
I must say, this curry isn’t one of Nagi’s best. I followed the recipe to a T and it was quite soupy despite using thick coconut milk as well as being pretty bland and one-dimensional compared to her other recipes. I ended up having to thicken it up with cornflour.
so good!
I was delighted to see this recipe!
When I made the Brazilian fish stew, I ended up with a lot of delicious broth leftover… so I threw in a can of chickpeas, simmered, then added a big handful of frozen spinach chunkies. GMTA!
Made this last night and it was quite nice. Muted flavours but felt like it was missing something. Will defo be adding ginger and chillies next time. I used Thai coconut milk which is extremely thick so my curry thickened up.
Fabulous for Meat free Monday! Thank you x
Delicious! I used a 8 oz pkg of frozen spinach and added chicken thighs for a one pot quick and easy meal. Freezes perfectly
Super simple and really tasty! Great work night meal.