Mushroom Curry with Spinach & Chickpeas (2024)

Published: September 12, 2017, Modified: February 5, 2020, By: Michelle Alston

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This deliciousMushroom Curry with spinach and chickpeas is rich and creamy and really easy to make. It's packed with flavour and great for a quick and tasty weeknight family meal. It's also vegan and gluten-free.

Mushroom Curry with Spinach & Chickpeas (2)

The Most Popular Curry On This Blog

This mushroom curry is rich and creamy and really easy to make, perfect for a nice midweek meal. It's mild enough that the kids will dig it too but it still has a nice little kick.

It's not just our favourite curry it's your favourite too! In fact, since I first published this recipe in 2017 it fast became one of the most popular recipes on this blog.

Don't just take my word for it, head on down to the comments to see why everyone loves this curry so much!

Why This Recipe Works

Family-friendly recipe - this curry is mild enough that the kids can enjoy it too. But if you fancy it hotter that's easy to do too! Just add more chilli and more curry powder.
Easy to make - it's really easy to make and can be on the table in 40 minutes!
Even meat-eaters love this!The meaty mushrooms in this curry even satisfy the meat-eaters in my life!

Mushroom Curry with Spinach & Chickpeas (3)

What You'll Need To Make This Mushroom Curry

Mushrooms -I use 2 types of mushrooms to make this curry, chestnut and portobello mushrooms. Look for firm clean mushrooms, that smell fresh. Wipe your mushrooms clean with kitchen paper or a vegetable brush.
Spinach -Fresh baby spinach works best here, but you can use frozen if you want. Just make sure to thaw it first and get rid of any excess water.
Chickpeas - I use canned chickpeas in this recipe for convenience, you can use dried chickpeas soaked overnight then cooked.
Spices -Turmeric, medium curry powder, mustard seeds and ground fenugreek are the spices you will need for this curry. You should find all of these in your local supermarket in the world food/spice section. Fenugreek is harder to get in some countries, you should find it in your local Indian grocery store or online. If you can't find it don't worry, many people have made this curry with great results without it or by using fenugreek seeds instead.
Aromatics -Garlic, ginger, onion and red chilli pepper. I always use fresh ginger and garlic.
Coconut Milk - I use full-fat coconut milk for this, you can make it with low-fat coconut milk but the sauce may be slightly thinner. I don't recommend using any other milk to make this curry. Look for a good quality coconut milk.
Chopped Tomatoes - You will need one can of chopped/diced tomatoes for this recipe. Again go for a good quality brand for the best results.

How To Make Mushroom Curry

Cook the onion for about 5 minutes over medium heat. The onions should be translucent. Then add garlic, ginger, and chilli and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in the spices and cook for a minute until the spices release their aromas.
Next, add the mushrooms along with a splash of water and stir until the mushrooms are covered in the spices. Season with the salt and pepper. Then add the can of tomatoes and the chickpeas, stir and leave to simmer for 5 minutes. Next, add the coconut milk, stir and leave to simmer gently for another 5 minutes.
Finally, add the spinach. As soon as the spinach has wilted the curry is ready. Serve immediately with rice, lime wedges, and some coriander/cilantro leaves.

Pro Tips for Making The Best Mushroom Curry

Mushrooms - Use a mixture of chestnut and portobello mushrooms, they will give the curry more flavour and give it a nice meaty texture. Always clean your mushrooms with a vegetable brush or by wiping them clean with kitchen paper. Never wash your mushrooms, they retain water and can become waterlogged, they can get quite slimy then when you cook them.
Coconut Milk -I use full-fat coconut milk to make this curry, you will get the best results with this. I don't recommend using any other milk, however, some people have had great success using a little almond milk and then thickening the sauce with a cornstarch/cornflour slurry.
Heat -This curry is deliberately mild so it's suitable for the whole family. If you want more heat I would add more chilli and more curry powder, go with your taste buds.

Freezing and Storing

Freezing - You can freeze this curry, I wouldn't add the spinach until reheating it though. Leave the curry to cool then transfer to suitable containers and keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.

To reheat -Remove the curry from the freezer and let it thaw overnight in the fridge. Reheat on the hob until the curry is piping hot. Add the spinach and cook until the spinach has wilted.

Leftovers -Any leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 days, reheat on the hob until piping hot.

Need More Tasty Vegan Dinner Ideas?

Vegan Thai Red Curry
Mushroom and Broccoli Stir Fry
Sweet Potato Satay Curry
Red Lentil Dahl
Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry

Have you made this Mushroom Curry Recipe?Rate it and leave me a comment below to let me know what you think!

Mushroomy Curry with Spinach & Chickpeas

Deliciously creamy and meaty this mushroom curry is perfect for a chilly Autumn evening.

4.91 from 77 votes

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Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Indian

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 4

Calories: 411kcal

Author: Michelle Alston

Ingredients

▢ 1 tbs olive oil
▢ 1 brown onion sliced
▢ 2 fat cloves of garlic minced
▢ 1 x 5cm piece of ginger peeled and finely grated
▢ 1 red chilli pepper seeds and pith removed, then chopped finely
▢ 1 heaped tsp ground fenugreek
▢ 1 heaped tsp turmeric
▢ 1 heaped tsp medium curry powder
▢ 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
▢ 1 x 400g can of chopped tomatoes
▢ 1 x 400g can coconut milk
▢ 1 x 400 g can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
▢ 450 g mushrooms, chestnut and portobello wiped clean and sliced thickly
▢ 100 g baby spinach leaves
▢ ½ teaspoon sea salt
▢ ¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
▢ 1 small handful of coriander/cilantro leaves to serve
▢ lime wedges to serve

Instructions

Heat the oil in a largesauté pan. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes over a medium heat. The onions should be soft and golden.
Add the garlic, ginger and chilli and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in the spices and cook for 1 minute until to can smell them. Add a splash of water if it gets too dry.
Now add the mushrooms and a splash of water stir until the mushrooms are covered in the spices. Season with the salt and pepper.
Pour in the can of tomatoes and add the chickpeas, stir and leave to simmer for 5 minutes. Then add the coconut milk, stir and leave to simmer gently for another 5 minutes.
Add the spinach. As soon as the spinach has wilted the curry is ready. Serve immediately with basmati rice (white or brown), lime wedges and some coriander leaves.

Notes

Mushrooms -I use a mixture of chestnut/brown mushrooms and Portobello mushrooms for this curry. Chestnut mushrooms have more flavour than white mushrooms and portobello mushrooms are nice and meaty when cooked.
Coconut Milk -I use full-fat coconut milk for this recipe, if you are avoiding coconut products then some readers have had success using almond milk and then thickening the sauce with a cornstarch/cornflour slurry.
Heat -This curry is deliberately mild to suit children's taste buds. If you want a spicier curry then increase the curry powder to two heaped teaspoons. You could add more chilli too if you want.
Nutritional Information - is approximate it is calculated using an online nutrition tool and does not include rice.
Recipe Inspiration -This recipe was roughly adapted from Jaime Oliver's Curry

Nutrition

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*This recipe was first published on September 12, 2017. It has now been updated with expert tips and more nutritional information.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

Meethi
January 22, 2023 at 5:46 pm

This tasted so heavenly. So easy to make and excellent taste!!! We couldn’t stop eating. Even my very picky son liked it and finished what was on his plate. Thanks for the great recipe!!! Will be making it regularly n
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  January 23, 2023 at 6:32 pm
  Hi Meethi, thank you so much for your lovely comment! I'm so happy that you all enjoyed it x
  Reply
Sylvia
February 05, 2022 at 6:21 pm

Hello Michelle, OMG what a fabulous recipe. I wanted something to use the abundance of mushrooms in my fridge. As I also had a lot of sweet potatoes I added 2 of those in place of chickpeas. First I cubed them and roasted in my airfryer! We almost ate the whole lot with the hubby between the both of us. I did not have yellow mustard seed so used black and no ground fenugreek so used dried fenugreek leaves. Also added a teaspoon of Kashmiri chilli powder as I love it. What a dish! Might make one tomorrow as well as I am already craving it. One question though, do you mean dries fenugreek seeds or leaves?
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  February 07, 2022 at 10:41 am
  Hi Sylvia, thank you so much for your lovely comment, I'm so glad that you loved it! The fenugreek in the recipe is ground fenugreek, from the seeds. I use shop-bought ground fenugreek, you can buy find it in most large supermarkets here x
  Reply
Greg
January 31, 2022 at 6:14 pm

Far too tasty for words. Will definitely be a regular on our dining table. Simmered for 20 mins longer to reduce and intensify, amazing. Thank you, Michelle.
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  February 01, 2022 at 3:29 pm
  Hi Greg, thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked it 🙂
  Reply
Andrea
January 26, 2022 at 12:34 am

This curry was wonderful. So wonderful in fact, that I find myself at work, dreaming of coming home to the leftovers!. Really appreciate the recipe. I will be making this often.
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  January 26, 2022 at 11:52 am
  Thank you so much Andrea! I'm so happy you like it 🙂
  Reply
Minty
December 14, 2021 at 6:46 pm
This site is my go to place for meat free recipes. I don’t tend to plan in advance so work the recipes around what I have in. I made this as close to the recipe as I could with what I spices I had to hand. It was really tasty and enjoyed by everyone. I will be sourcing the exact ingredients for the next time I make it as I am sure it will be even better.
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  December 14, 2021 at 8:09 pm
  Hi Minty, thanks so much for your lovely comment. I'm so glad you're enjoying the recipes. Michelle 🙂
  Reply
Edward
December 03, 2021 at 6:59 pm

Thank you for sharing this recipe. We make and eat curry dishes at least once per week. I noticed that the ingredients are all the spices we use in our curry dishes. One will tune the taste as we cook to our liking, No persons taste buds are the same as the next, so one compensate for that while cooing the dish. It is the love for this type of food that we all share! This will be our next dish!
Alet and Edward
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  December 06, 2021 at 11:41 am
  Hi Edward and Alet, thank you for your lovely comment. I hope you both enjoyed it 🙂
  See Also
  Simple German Oven Fried Chicken – Oma's Brathendl (Hähnchen)
  Reply
  - Londa
    September 14, 2022 at 9:52 am
    Hi Michelle, this looks amazing and I'm looking forward to making it! Can you share which medium spice curry brand you use?
    Thanks
  - Michelle Alston
    September 16, 2022 at 2:00 pm
    Hi Londa, this is the curry powder I use: https://www.schwartz.co.uk/products/herbs-and-spices/curry-powders/curry-powder-medium
Tia
November 30, 2021 at 10:55 pm

Full of flavor and easy to throw together. Subbed cumin for the fenugreek like others suggested and eyeballed the spices. Great weeknight meal. Thank you!
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  December 01, 2021 at 1:04 pm
  Thank you so much Tia, I'm so glad you enjoyed it 🙂
  Reply
Shawn K
October 11, 2021 at 12:53 pm
Just made this and it is amazing! The recipe is super easy to make and my husband (who is from India) was blown away with the taste. I had made extra to share with my adult son who lives away and my husband suggested that maybe we should keep more of the curry as he wanted to eat it all. 🙂 This never happens!
Thanks so much!
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  October 12, 2021 at 12:28 pm
  Hi Shawn, oh my goodness I am so thrilled to hear this! I'm very happy that you both enjoyed it, thanks so much for your lovely comment X
  Reply
Kat
July 31, 2021 at 7:04 pm
I think I've messed this up somehow.
It looked and smelt beautiful until I added the spinach. I used frozen but defrosted and removed excess water.
It seemed to take over the flavour and made it very 'green' and herby. More thai curry like.
Could I have used too much?
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  August 01, 2021 at 11:56 am
  Hi Kat, it does sound like you may have used too much spinach. You didn't say how much you added but the spinach shouldn't make this curry green or change the flavour of it too much. The other thing is that I make this with fresh baby (young) spinach, which works best. Frozen spinach will be the older type of spinach which is a lot stronger in flavour so you would need to use a lot less than the fresh baby spinach, this could possibly be where you went wrong. I hope this helps, Michelle x
  Reply
Nora
July 09, 2021 at 1:22 pm
I dont understand where the 30min cooking time comes from, I only count 17 minutes from the instructions
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  July 09, 2021 at 3:01 pm
  Hi Nora, the 17 minutes you are seeing in the instructions are for cooking certain elements, the remaining time is for cooking other elements such as the mushrooms (step 3), wilting the spinach (step 4). This curry definitely takes 30 minutes to cook. Also, cooking times are always a guide for any recipe, the actual cooking time will vary slightly from one person to the next, so they will never be exact 😉
  Reply
Sunitha
April 23, 2021 at 1:54 pm

Simply delicious ! Thanks for sharing this recipe.
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  April 26, 2021 at 12:51 pm
  Thanks so much Sunitha, I'm so glad you liked it 🙂
  Reply
Karen Slater
February 09, 2021 at 8:25 pm

Despite guessing the quantities of spices it turned out delicious! Very tasty - one for the recipe journal
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  February 10, 2021 at 12:53 pm
  Hi Karen, I'm so glad you liked it. Just to let you know that if you choose to make this recipe again all the ingredients are listed in the recipe card at the end of the post. Mx
  Reply
Debbie Tuck
February 01, 2021 at 5:21 pm

Made this tonight and absolutely loved this curry, thank you for this recipe.
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  February 01, 2021 at 6:31 pm
  Hi Debbie, you are so welcome! I'm so glad you loved it 🙂
  Reply
Neetu
January 25, 2021 at 3:40 am
I forgot to mention that I also added 2 TB tomato paste for color and richness in the blender with the tomatoes and coconut milk
Reply
Neetu
January 25, 2021 at 3:19 am

Excellent!! Thank you, Michelle. I've added this to my reliable repeat recipes. I used the given recipe as a base and then modified the first time I made it. Here is how I changed it:
Eliminated: yellow mustard seeds, whole red chili pepper
Added: 1 tsp black mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 8 curry leaves, 1/2 -2/3 tsp red chili powder
Changed: 2 fresh tomatoes and half can of full fat coconut milk (instead of 1 can crushed tomatoes and 1 whole can coconut milk)
1. Once oil is hot add 1 tsp mustard seeds. Once they crackle/splutter
2. Add 1/2 tsp cumin seeds. Let the seeds get a little brown
3. Add the finely chopped onion. Stir and cook until translucent
4. Add the ginger and garlic. Stir until raw ginger garlic smell has disappeared (2 min)
5. Add the curry leaves (I used fresh ones), sautee x 1 min
6. Add the ground spices - 1/2 tsp turmeric (I reduced it from 1 tsp), 1/2-1 tsp salt (to taste), 1/2 tsp fenugreek powder, 1/2 -2/3 tsp red chili powder, 1.5 tsp curry powder. Cook for about 1 min.
7. Add the mushrooms (I only had a large container of sliced portabella, so used this). Stir nicely. These release water, so I covered the pan and allowed these to cook and simmer in the spices and released water for several minutes (2-3 min).
8. While this was sauteeing with a lid on, I used a high powered blender to puree my two roughly chopped tomatoes and 1/2 can of coconut milk. I added about 1/4 c of cooked chickpeas to create a slight thickness to this sauce.
9. I added the tomato-coconut milk-chickpea sauce to the mushroom, onion, and spice pan and mixed well. I covered this and simmered this for 5 min so the tomatoes could cook and the acid and all the spices could come together.
10. Next, I added a can of cooked chickpeas. I let this simmer, covered, for another 5 min
11. Finally, I added fresh spinach (estimated based on how much I wanted) and turned off the gas after a min and kept this covered.
By the time the rest of dinner was done, this was a nice thick mushroom curry.
Many thanks!
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  January 25, 2021 at 10:33 am
  Hi Neetu, I'm so glad you liked it and have added it to your reliable repeat recipes! I love that you have adapted the recipe to suit what you have! This is exactly how recipes should be used. I'm looking forward to trying your adaptations next time I make this. Michelle x
  Reply
  - Lynne
    April 26, 2022 at 1:42 pm
    
    You're very kind! We loved your recipe and wouldn't dream of telling you to change it!!! X
  - Michelle Alston
    April 27, 2022 at 1:57 pm
    Thanks so much Lynne Xx
Debra
January 02, 2021 at 9:24 pm

Tastes fantastic!
Reply
- Michelle Alston
  January 03, 2021 at 1:55 pm
  Thanks so much Debra 🙂
  Reply
- Richard
  January 17, 2021 at 12:07 pm
  
  Just made this. Really easy, but not as good as everyone else seems to think. Bit too much ginger for good balance (my taste?) and far too thin. More like soup than sauce, despite adding tomato puree to try and thicken. Suggest that half amount of ginger and coconut milk would be better. Maybe try this next time. If I try it again
  Reply
  - Michelle Alston
    January 17, 2021 at 1:05 pm
    Hi Richard, I'm so sorry this wasn't to your liking. I have made this many times and have never felt that the ginger was too much. I have never felt that this curry was soup-like, but if you prefer a thicker sauce then I would recommend adding a mixture of cornstarch and water, 1 teaspoon of cornstarch and 3 or 4 tablespoons of water mixed together then added in towards the end of cooking, this would thicken it better than adding the tomato puree. Best wishes, Michelle.