Palak Dal

If you are looking for a home-cooked green vegetarian meal to go along with your rice bowl,  this might be the best recipe that you can find on the internet for you. Palak dal or spinach and lentils have been enjoyed for centuries in India as healthy vegetarian comfort food.  It’s nutritious, light, and flavourful which makes it a hit recipe in India. It’s also a great way to get your kids to incorporate spinach into their diets.

What is a Palak Dal?

Palak Dal is one of the healthiest meals you can find on the menu of Indian restaurants. It is one of India’s most famous comfort foods. Palak dal is delicious with creamy lentils and spinach, which have a warm spicy flavor. This recipe requires a pressure cooker which is more popular in India than it is here in the United States. However, it is a one-pot meal that is very fast and easy to cook.

Ingredients at a Glance

Spinach – In this dish, I used baby spinach, although ordinary spinach would also work. Wash the spinach thoroughly and use finely chopped spinach.

Lentils: You can use toor/tuvar/arhar dal, a yellow lentil, for this recipe, but you can use any type of lentil. Split moong dal (petite yellow lentils), red lentils (split masoor dal) to form palak masoor dal, and so on. They all function perfectly. You can also combine different types of lentils.

Yellow moong dal – ½ cup

Green chilies – You can skip or choose the amount of spiciness that you want for this recipe.

Aromatics – Ginger and garlic are a must for any Indian dish. However, you can skip the garlic as well but it does add an enticing aroma to the dal.

Spices – We’ll use 1 teaspoon  of cumin seed while cooking the palak and another teaspoon  for tadka (cooked spice mix), coriander powder, asafetida, turmeric powder, and whole dry red chilies

Oil – I have used ghee in this recipe. But, for the vegan version, you can skip the ghee and use any oil of your choice.

How to prepare Palak Dal?

Wash and soak both the dals for 30 minutes. Pressure cook both dals with 3 cups of water, salt, and turmeric powder. After 1 whistle, reduce the heat and cook for 8-10 minutes. Let the pressure cooker release pressure naturally.

Now heat a pan and add oil. Add cumin seeds and let it splutter for 1 minute.

Add ginger and garlic and saute for 3 mins. Add green chilies and saute for a minute or two.

Add asafoetida, coriander powder, and turmeric powder. Saute on low heat for 3 to 4 minutes.

Add finely chopped palak and mix well along with the other masalas and saute on low for 5-6 mins.

Now add the cooked palak to the dal and mix well.

If the dal is very thick add two cups of water and bring it to a boil on medium for 7 to 8 minutes.

Transfer the Palak dal to a bowl and keep it aside and prepare a simple tadka

Heat a pan and add ghee. Once the ghee heats up, add whole red chilies and cumin seeds.

Let it splutter. Turn off the heat and add red chili powder. Mix well. Pour this tadka into the Palak dal bowl and mix it. This tadka adds a nice flavor but is optional.

Your Palak dal is ready to enjoy!

Some expert tips for preparing Palak Dal

• Letting the pressure cooker lid go down by itself, acts as an indicator that the dal has been cooked. Opening it forcefully can also result in steam burns if you’re not careful.
• If you do not have a pressure cooker handy, you can simply boil the lentils til they’re done. It’ll take longer but it’ll get there. Pressure cookers aren’t very common in the western world so it might just be the case that you don’t have one on hand.

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