If I could only cook one dish for a vegan skeptic…

The question I get asked most often is that I'm

vegan

, but my family isn't and they don't like what I

cook

, what can I do to get them excited about

vegan

food? So when I hear that question, the first thing I think is: Have you tried my taco bell supreme crunchwrap because it's so good, but then I remember there are a few steps involved? It's not exactly something you're going to make every night of the week, so it's more of a special occasion treat, so my second thought is. you really need to try my red lentil curry.

This recipe is perfect not

only

for vegans but also

skeptic

al vegans and anyone trying to eat more plant-based foods. Here's why, first of all, this recipe is weekend-friendly from start to finish and requires prep time: 45 minutes or less, so it's definitely something you can make midweek. This curry is something you can make ahead of time. The flavors improve the next day. Freezes well and is great for meal prep. This curry is also very easy to prepare. special skills involved, you can be a beginner

cook

and still prepare it and it is made mainly with pantry ingredients, this curry is well balanced, we have healthy fats, proteins and complex carbohydrates so that no one goes hungry or feels dissatisfied and finally, this Red lentil curry is forking delicious, I've introduced it to many people, including vegan

skeptic

s, who now say it's part of their regular rotation because it's so easy but so tasty to boot.

We will prepare our aromatics. We have garlic, which I'm going to chop. green chilies I have serrano chilies and ginger garlic ginger and green chilies are a kind of holy trinity of Indian cooking when you sauté them in oil they form the base of many Indian

dish

es, I suppose it should actually be a sacred quartet because onions are often involved, but we don't really need onions in this recipe, it's actually a fraternity and what a quaternity, not a quartet, yeah, I don't think so. I have never used the word quaternity, it is not a word that we are not. using it is one more than infinity and one less than quantity, okay, we're done here and I'm grating the ginger with a microplane, which is one of my favorite kitchen tools, if you don't have one, you can also use a grater. oh oh oh we also need one or two serrano peppers that are cut into cubes.

I leave the seeds in because we love spicy food, but if you're a little sensitive to spicy food or have a baby mouth, which is what Max calls people who can. Don't eat spicy food if you have a baby mouth, take out the seeds before you go. If you're wondering what a beautiful kitchen I'm in today. This is my parents' house. We moved to California a couple of weeks ago. We're still looking for our own place, but in the meantime, my parents have kittens just fine. One of the ingredients in this curry, like many Indian curries, is turmeric.

If you can find fresh turmeric, it is really delicious in this recipe, it looks like ginger but has orange peel. You can find it in a South Asian supermarket. stores and some other grocery stores are also totally fine if you can't find it because ground turmeric works too. We need a variety of ground spices for this curry, cumin, coriander, curry powder, turmeric, garam masala and Indian red chilli, this is a weeknight curry. As I mentioned, we're not going to use whole spices other than ground spices, which is what I often do with Indian recipes, so today we're keeping it simple, but don't worry, these spices pack a lot of flavor.

I have a cup of red lentils here and I'm going to rinse them until the water runs clear. These are regular red lentils, but you can also use split red lentils. Those cook a little faster but both work very well in all our preparation. That's it, now let's go to the stove and start cooking our curry. The first thing you need to do for this recipe is heat a large, deep saucepan with a little coconut oil or any neutral cooking oil of your choice. the oil is hot we will add the garlic, ginger and green chilies, now we will add all those ground spices along with salt and pepper and we will cook it for just a minute until everything smells really delicious.

Give the spices a little time to bloom and that will add more flavor to your food rather than just adding the spices with the ground liquid, the spices can burn quite quickly so if you need to lower the heat and as soon as they are really fragrant, go ahead and add your liquid, which is our vegetable broth. This is a really new pan, so nothing is sticking, but if you have some brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan, just pour in the vegetable broth and stir with a spatula until When you loosen them, we'll also add the washed red lentils and we'll add a 14 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, stir everything together and then lower the heat, cover the pan and let the lentils simmer for 20 to 25 minutes until they're al dente and then we'll add a couple more ingredients.

The lentils have been simmering for 25 minutes. They're al dente but cooked through and now I'm going to add two ingredients to make them really creamy and indulgent first. above, I have some full fat coconut milk in a can, this is what will help balance those spices, so don't skip this because the curry will be too hot and spicy if you don't add the coconut milk, coconut milk really. It helps balance all the flavors and provides a nice rich texture and the second ingredient that is a little less traditional in a curry is the almond butter, it is so rich that it adds a slight nutty flavor and just gives it a little more indulgence to this curry and then cook the curry over low or medium-low heat uncovered for five to seven minutes until it is a little thicker.

I'm also going to add a little salt and pepper at this stage the curry is almost ready and smells as good as most. aromatic indian food the whole house smells like curry I used to hear those jokes a lot in grade school like your house smells like disgusting curry and I was like, well, it doesn't smell like dry meatloaf, which is worse, just kidding, I probably didn't. I say that because I wasn't that funny of a kid so I'm just chopping up some fresh cilantro. I have some lemon juice. We'll finish the curry with that. This curry is ready.

It smells very good. You wouldn't be a good Indian if I didn't tell you to serve it with some white basmati rice. I also have some vegan naan here. You can also make roti or paratha. Now is the time for you to try it, whether you are vegan or vegan. skeptical or just looking to eat more plants, you will love this curry, super easy and quick to prepare, it is creamy, rich, indulgent. I know how challenging it can be to prepare tasty meals on a weeknight, so I put on a short playlist. together for you is here