Palak Chole Indian Spinach Chickpea Curry

Making spinach sauce for palak chole is very similar to making spinach gravy for dishes like palak paneer minus the butter & heavy cream. With autumn on its way, paired with a warm bowl of cumin rice or rotis, it makes for a soul comforting dinner. During winters, a ton of greens were harvested from the vegetable garden at my grandma and I grew up eating palak paneer or palak rotis every other day. Spinach sauces are my absolute favorite and I got my kids hooked on to them as well right from the time they were babies.

About Palak Chole

Palak = Spinach , Chole or Chana = White Chickpeas (garbanzo beans). Also known as palak chana/chole palak or saag chana/chana saag (when you add a variety of green leafy vegetables), this punjabi style curry is packed with goodness of spinach. Making palak chole is really simple. Since I like cooking chickpeas from scratch, I do so a day or two ahead by boiling the chickpeas. You could totally use canned chickpeas! You can also making the spinach puree ahead and keep refrigerated. For the spinach sauce, simply we are going to a simple onion-tomato masala base with addition of few whole spices and simmer the spinach and chickpeas together in it until beautiful flavors develop. As with most curries, the spinach sauce tastes very good next day because the flavors get a chance to absorb as the curry rests. Since I keep the consistency of palak chole curry on a thick side, it can be used to make wraps or easily packed in lunch boxes.

About My Recipe

Here are a few things I would like to highlight about my recipe.

I don’t over-spice spinach dishes, the taste of my palak chole recipe is homestyle. It is a hearty curry that you will love eating all curled up on the couch. The spinach sauce has a thickish consistency. Whenever I am making spinach sauces, I am a extra careful. I add the stock or water slowly, simmer and then add some more as needed. Ideally, I don’t like the liquid/water separating from the sauce when you ladle it on a plate. The stock from boiling the chickpeas is very delicious and I use it while sauteeing the masala as well as to thin out the sauce. That said, please feel free to adjust the consistency as you wish. The Secret Ingredient- A few florets of broccoli! I learnt to add it from one of my favorite frozen indian food brands here. Okay they haven’t shared the recipe with me, but lets say I am the one who reads labels keenly 🙂 I like adding a few just 4 or 5 florets of broccoli to the spinach sauce. You won’t taste it, I promise. Boil the broccoli along with the spinach and puree them together. I feel it adds a very nice texture and robustness to the spinach sauce. Again this is fully optional.

Ingredients

Chickpeas Fresh spinach or frozen Ground Spice - Coriander powder, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala powder , amchoor (dry mango powder) or lemon juice Mustard Oil (or any cooking oil of choice) Whole Spices - Bay leaf, clove, cinnamon stick, green cardamom, fennel seeds Tomato- Fresh or canned. You could use tomato sauce/ tomato puree as well. Other Ingredients - ginger, garlic, green chillies, kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves, skip if not available), salt. Store bought ginger garlic paste is fine to use.

How to make Palak Chole

The process starts with making spinach puree and boiling the chickpeas. Pressure boiling chole from scratch takes about 20-25 minutes. You may start working on the masala base in the mean time. Once done and cook the spinach and chickpeas together for about 20-30 minutes.

Spinach Puree

For making palak chole, I prefer to use cooking spinach or spinach bunch. The leaves of cooking spinach are darker and thick as compared to baby spinach. It is easily available in the greens aisle in stores(I have seen bagged ones too). You can choose baby spinach as well but I personally feel that the thicker stems and the large cooking spinach leaves are much flavorful and can stand up to the sautéing. Frozen Spinach is fine to use as well. It eliminates the need to blanch the spinach. Simply thaw the frozen spinach and blend it.

Cooking Chickpeas

Canned chickpeas are perfectly fine to use. Why I use scratch boiled chickpeas then? First reason is that I grew up seeing it. It is a very common practice in indian kitchens to soak the raw chickpeas overnight (8-10hours). And then pressure cook. I am so programmed to using chickpeas or for that matter any kind of raw beans, that I still stick to this practice in my own kitchen. Secondly, and more importantly, soaking and boiling the raw chickpeas at home gives you the most delicous stock/broth that really adds to the taste of the spinach sauce.

Make The Masala Base

Make a simple homestyle onion tomato masala base with a few whole spices thrown in, similar how what I have shared many times in recipes on the blog. Most north indian curries have an onion-tomato-ginger-garlic masala base as a starting point quite comparable to sofrito. In this recipe I add, cinnamon, cloves and few pods of green cardamom to add warmth to the spinach sauce. Simmer the spinach puree together with cooked chickpeas (and the stock or water) and finish with garam masala and kasuri methi(dried fenugreek).