5 Bean Curry Recipe on Food52 (2024)

Author Notes

5 bean curry is an Indian curry that is a blend of 5 protein-rich beans. This curry is healthy and delicious thanks to the different beans, the creamy tangy tomato sauce, and a whole bunch of spices. It's a nice little twist on a regular bean curry. This curry can be eaten for lunch or dinner when accompanied by rice or bread. —Anu

Test Kitchen Notes

Nice vegetarian curry, although I've never added cream cheese (I used Laughing Cow Original) to a sauce in my life! I have an Instant Pot pressure cooker (one of those crazy ones that even has a Bluetooth in it), so I cooked the beans on the "Beans" manual setting according to how long they were soaked. The beans cooked for a total of 20 minutes and it worked out perfectly. I made a homemade garlic-ginger-onion paste. The quantity for the ground coriander was left out, so I used 1 teaspoon. There's no mention of adding salt throughout the curry cooking process, but it definitely needs it. —cratecooking

What You'll Need

Ingredients

• ¹/₂ cuponion-ginger-garlic paste (see step 1)
  
• ¹/₄ cupdried kidney beans, washed and soaked overnight
  
• ¹/₄ cupdried chickpeas, washed and soaked overnight
  
• ¹/₄ cupdried whole black gram (whole urad beans), washed and soaked overnight
  
• ¹/₄ cupdried black-eyed peas, washed and soaked overnight
  
• ¹/₄ cupdried whole green gram (mung beans), washed and soaked overnight
  
• 2 teaspoonssalt, or to taste
  
• 1 cinnamon stick
  
• 1 black cardamom pod
  
• 1 bay leaf
  
• 2 tablespoonsolive oil
  
• 1 tablespoonbutter
  
• 1 teaspooncumin seeds
  
• 1 teaspoongreen chile, chopped
  
• 1 cuptomatoes, chopped
  
• 1 piececream cheese spread triangles, or 1 tablespoon cream cheese
  
• 1 teaspoonred chili powder
  
• 1 teaspoonground coriander
  
• 1 teaspoonground cumin
  
• ¹/₄ teaspoonground turmeric
  
• ¹/₄ teaspoongaram masala
  
• 2 tablespoonsdried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi)
  
• ¹/₂ teaspoonsugar
  
• Steamed rice, for serving