This easy vegetarian coconut curry recipe is the best vegetarian curry recipe which you can make easily for your dinner.
We use fresh coconuts and cashews along with spices to make this base curry sauce recipe. As we didn’t use any dairy products here, this is a vegan curry base or vegan gravy as well.
It is the combination of coconut and cashews in them make this so outstanding and delicious along with coconut and spices.
However, if you have a nut allergy or if you are preparing food for anyone with nut allergy, you shouldn’t use the cashew nuts. Otherwise please don’t skip the cashew nuts as they make this curry really really yummy.
Once you made this base curry sauce recipe for the vegetarian coconut curry recipe, your base curry sauce or base gravy is ready to be used and you can easily add cooked vegetables, cooked beans or lentils to the prepared curry gravy and enjoy the meal.
Usually curries are served with rice (both cooked white rice and brown rice can be used with curries) or any flatbreads like chapathi, nan, roti or you use them even to make curried pasta. In Indian vegetarian cuisine, we make a lot of curry recipes in different ways.
While in North India mostly tomato puree is used, in South India coconut is used a lot to prepare curries.
In fact in Kerala, the most common and popular curry gravy is prepared from a blend of fresh coconut and spices like turmeric, garam masala powder, coriander powder, cinnamon, red chili powder and a lot more depending upon the recipe we are following.
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And of course you can use curry powders to make the curry more quickly and also to make them more delicious. There are different kind of curry powders which you can use, some of them being mild and some of them being spicy.
You can buy the curry powder based on your personal preferences. And add more spices to your curry as you wish by adding your own favorite spices.
As I mentioned above, the basic spices that we use in Indian vegetarian coconut curry recipe or Indian cashew curry recipe, are turmeric, garam masala powder, red chili powder and coriander powder. You can add more spices and less spices as you wish according to your taste buds.
Indian vegetarian coconut curry recipe and Indian cashew curry recipe can be made using blending coconut, cashews and spices together.
If you want to make vegetarian coconut curry recipe without cashews, just skip cashews and add a bit more of coconut (like about ¼ cup extra). If you want to make a pure Indian cashew curry recipe you may skip the coconut and add more cashews.
In this best vegetarian coconut curry recipe or best basic curry base recipe to make gravy for curries, we use both fresh coconut and cashews along with few exotic spices.
So let us go on to the recipe of vegetarian coconut curry recipe or the best basic curry base recipe to make the curry sauce base.
Vegan/Vegetarian Coconut Curry Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups fresh grated coconut or use shredded coconut or coconut flakes
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 3 cups water
- 2 teaspoons garlic crushed
- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ¼ teaspoon red chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons coriander powder
- ¼ teaspoon cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon garam masala powder
- 1 teaspoon curry powder optional
- 2 tablespoons oil
- salt as required
For seasoning (optional)
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds or cumin seeds
- 5 dry red chilies
- 1 string curry leaves optional
- 2 tablespoons oil
Instructions
- Add the fresh coconut, cashews and water to the the blender and blend in high speed until the mix is very smooth and gravy like texture.
- Heat a pan, add oil and heat the oil.
- Add the crushed garlic and gravy mix we prepared - the coconut cashew mix to the pan with hot oil, cook in low heat stirring frequently.
- Add the salt and all spices to the gravy in the pan - turmeric, black pepper, red chili powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, garam masala powder and curry powder if using.
- Let the gravy get cooked with the spices for few minutes or until the mixture starts boiling.
- As the mixture starts boiling, you can turn off the heat and transfer the pan from the stove so that the gravy will cool down.
- Now your gravy made of coconut cashew paste with spices is ready to be used as the base curry or base sauce for any recipe that requires curry base. You can add cooked vegetables, beans or lentils to this gravy mix and make soups, stews and exotic curries to accompany any main dish like rice or any kind of breads or noodles or pasta as you wish!
- In Indian cooking, we often add the tadka or seasoning to the curry gravy. You can also make the seasoning and add it to the gravy if you wish.
- Heat oil in a pan and when the oil is hot add mustard seeds (or cumin seeds).
- When the mustard seeds start spluttering, add red chilies and curry leaves and fry for a few seconds.
Notes
Nutrition
Extra Notes: You may also blend together all the ingredients including the spices(other than the seasoning ingredients) together in the blender.
The only downside of doing this is sometimes spices like turmeric may stain parts of the blender if you don’t wash and clean it immediately.
This is not the only way to prepare curry or gravy bases, but this is definitely one of the most delicious ways to prepare a vegetarian coconut curry following a vegetarian coconut curry recipe for preparing the basic curry sauce for recipes.
I do not always prepare curry this way as I prepare the curries in different ways as I feel the need to do or depending on the situation or availability of ingredients, and many times I just prepare everything together instead of preparing the base gravy or sauce first.
This recipe is definitely one of the best recipes you can use to prepare the base gravy for rich curries especially if you want to prepare the gravy first and then add the remaining ingredients.
Hope you find this post on vegetarian coconut curry recipe helpful to you in preparing basic curry base for recipes.
You might like to see my post on how to cook with lentils
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