Chicken and Chickpea Curry with Spinach

5 from 2 votes

Chicken and Chickpea Curry with Spinach

This Chicken and Chickpea Curry with Spinach is perfect for when you want a healthy alternative to a takeaway curry. It's quick, easy, delicious and packed full of goodness – but only 377 calories! Perfect for those busy weeknights when you have no time, but still want to eat well.

Course Curry, Main Course

Cuisine British, Fusion, Indian

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 25

Total Time 30

Servings people

Calories 377kcal

Author Eb Gargano

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion sliced
2 cloves garlic crushed or grated
½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes (or to taste, see Note 1)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoons garam masala
400 g boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into bitesize pieces
400 ml coconut milk (see Note 2)
1 small cauliflower (roughly 500g/1lb, chopped into bitesize pieces)
Salt and pepper to taste
400 g tin chickpeas drained
150 g spinach (ideally baby spinach)
Juice of ½ a lime plus lime quarters for serving (optional)
2 tablespoons fresh coriander (AKA cilantro) roughly chopped – plus extra for garnish

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Place the oil and sliced onion in a wide and fairly deep saucepan or frying pan. Cover and fry over a low heat, for 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the onion is softened but not browned.
Add the garlic, chilli flakes, cumin, turmeric and garam masala, and gently fry, stirring frequently, for 1 minute. (If it starts to look too dry, add a small splash of water.)
Add the diced chicken and fry for 1 minute in the spices, then add the coconut milk and cauliflower pieces, plus some salt and pepper.
Turn the heat up high and bring to the boil uncovered. Then cover, turn the heat right down and simmer for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, add the chickpeas and cook uncovered on high for a further 5 minutes to thicken the sauce (see Note 3) checking occasionally to make sure it’s not getting too dry. (If it gets too dry, simply add a splash more water and stir.)
Finally, turn off the heat and add the spinach to the top of the pan. Cover and wait 1 minute to allow the spinach to wilt, then stir the spinach into the curry. (See Notes 4 & 5.)
Finally, stir in the fresh lime juice and fresh coriander (cilantro), then garnish with extra fresh coriander leaves and serve with basmati rice, brown rice or pilau rice and lime quarters and naan bread.

Notes

For my tastes, I find that ½ teaspoon of chilli flakes is about right for a ‘medium’ curry, but it does depend a lot on your brand of chilli flakes and your own spice tolerance! If in doubt, try ¼ teaspoon to start with – you can always add more chilli later! Alternatively, if you know you can take the heat, you might like to start with 1 teaspoon chilli flakes.
You can use either regular or light coconut milk – regular will give you a creamier curry, but light will be fewer calories! I have used light coconut milk in the calorie calculations.
The sauce in this curry is quite thin, and if you boil it down you’ll end up with quite a dry curry. If you prefer a thicker / saucier curry, I recommend you add a little more liquid and then some ground almonds to thicken the sauce.
Spinach is notoriously difficult to stir into a dish, so I recommend you use my little trick, which is to place the spinach on top of the curry and pop the lid back on the curry. Wait 1 minute and the spinach will have wilted in the steam, making it super easy to stir into the curry!
I like spinach to be very lightly cooked and bright green, as I prefer the fresh taste and texture of spinach that has been only very lightly cooked. If you prefer well cooked spinach, add the spinach into the curry with the chickpeas instead and you will get that dark green colour and more ‘cooked’ taste.
Suitable for freezing.
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

Nutrition