Today I’m sharing the recipe for one of my family’s favourite weeknight dinners. This delicious curry is simple to prepare and ready in just 30 minutes. It’s budget friendly too, costing around £1 per portion. We love to serve it with rice, warm flat bread or a combination of the two. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Home-made curries are super cheap to make and require very little equipment, so perfect for students or anyone on a tight budget. The recipe I’m sharing today cost me just £2.22 to make (with ingredients bought from a mainstream UK supermarket). If you shop at a budget supermarket, it could be even cheaper!
INGREDIENT COSTS
- ½ medium onion (60g) (Tesco, 5p)
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (Tesco, 5p)
- 5 mushrooms (100g) (Tesco, 30p)
- 1 medium sweet potato (170g) (Tesco, 20p)
- ½ tsp smoked paprika (Tesco, 2p)
- ½ tsp ground cumin (East End, 1p)
- 1 TBSP mild curry powder (Tesco, 9p)
- 400 ml / 14 oz can chopped tomatoes (Tesco, 49p)
- 180ml / ¾ cup vegetable stock (broth) (Marigold, 8p)
- 400ml / 14 oz can chickpeas (Tesco, 49p)
- 50g / 2 oz creamed coconut (Pride, 25p)
- 130g / ⅔ cup brown rice (or your personal favourite rice) (Tesco, 19p)
Total cost: £2.22
Cost per serving: £1.11
N.B. Prices listed are for May 2024. I use Tesco prices as that’s where I do my main grocery shop at the moment.
I love to use creamed coconut in my Indian curries as it adds a lovely touch of sweetness and creaminess. In the UK, it can be found on the world food aisles in the supermarkets (in the Indian and Thai sections), as well as in health food shops and ethnic stores. It comes in a solid block (so not to be confused with coconut cream which comes in a tin or tetra pak). My current favourite brand is Pride.
Here are a few reasons why I prefer to use creamed coconut rather than coconut milk in my curries….
➡ Creamed coconut is simply made of dehydrated coconut meat, whereas a lot of coconut milks contain added ingredients, including weird-sounding ones like ‘Polysorbate 60’.
➡ I find I only need to use a quarter of a 200g block of creamed coconut to achieve the desired levels of creaminess for a curry, so the overall fat and calorie content of the curry is less than using a can of coconut milk.
➡ It works out far cheaper. The creamed coconut in this curry cost just 25p compared to £1.35 for a can of quality coconut milk (one without weird ingredients).
Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry
Ingredients
- ½ TBSP oil
- ½ medium onion (60g) finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 5 mushrooms (100g) finely chopped
- 1 medium sweet potato (170 g) peeled and diced
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- 1 TBSP mild curry powder (or to taste)
- 400 ml / 14 oz can chopped tomatoes
- 180 ml / ¾ cup vegetable stock (broth)
- 1 x 400ml / 14 oz cans chickpeas rinsed and drained*
- 50 g / 2 oz creamed coconut** chopped
Side dish
- 130g / ⅔ cup brown rice (or your favourite rice)***
Optional extras
- Baby spinach leaves finely chopped
- Flatbreads, such as chapatti, roti or naan
Instructions
- If using brown rice, prepare this first as it will take about 30 minutes to cook. Follow the instructions on the packet.
- To prepare the curry: Gently heat the oil in a saucepan. Cook the onion for a couple of minutes until it starts to soften. Meanwhile prepare the mushrooms and sweet potato. The finer you dice the potato, the quicker it will cook.
- Stir in the garlic, mushrooms and sweet potato. Continue cooking until the mushrooms start to release their liquid.
- Add the spices to the pan (smoked paprika, cumin, curry powder) and stir through. If they start to stick to the pan, add a splash of water.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, vegetable stock, chickpeas and creamed coconut. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat, cover with a lid and simmer for 20 minutes or until the potato is really tender. Remove from the heat and season with salt, to taste.
- Arrange in bowls with the rice and any optional extras.
- Leftover curry can be stored in the fridge for up to five days. Refrigerate any leftover rice within 1 hour of cooking and consume within 24 hours. https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/home-food-fact-checker
Notes
N.B. The above values are estimates and for illustration purposes only. The actual nutritional values will vary depending on the specific ingredients used. The % Reference Intake (RI) will also vary depending on your age, gender, height, BMI, level of activity and other personal variables.
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If you make this curry, I’d love to hear your feedback and any suggestions for adaptations! Tag your photos with #bitofthegoodstuff on social media and they will find their way to me. You can also connect with me on my social media channels here:
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With love,
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Vegan Night at Bath Scouts, 2018 💚
In March, Mark and I were invited by our local Scout group (boys and girls aged 10 to 16) to lead a vegan cooking session. The scouts were split into four teams and we set them the challenge of making this Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry as well as chapattis from scratch! They had thirty minutes to create the meal and present it, before being judged. They had the added difficulty of being in their scout hut with very little equipment! We were blown away not only by their cooking abilities, but also their enthusiasm! All four teams ended up producing the most delicious curries, which meant we had a really tough time picking a winner. I managed to snap a couple of pics before the curries got devoured.
Didn’t they do well? We heard that some of the scouts even started cooking this curry at home for their families!
N.B. This post was originally published in 2018 and updated in 2024.
This has moved to our no.1 curry spot. Thank you 🙂
YAY! So pleased to hear you’re enjoying the curry! 😄
Love this recipe. I wondered if you can freeze the rest of the creamed coconut block ? How long will it keep once opened.
Hi Ann, I’m so happy to hear you love this curry! It’s still one of my family’s favourites 🙂 I keep my creamed coconut blocks in the fridge. I seal up the bag it comes in to make it airtight and I’ve never known it to ever go off. I’m sure it would be fine to freeze too, though maybe slice it first so it’s easier to pull out the amount you need for a recipe, rather than trying to slice a frozen block. I hope this helps! Best wishes, Sharon x
Thanks Sharon I will give it a go .