Bean curry (vegan)

I love simple vegetable casseroles, we have a lot of these here, in Hungary (called “főzelék”). However, the endless cycle of lentils-green peas-green beans would be slightly boring, so I like to spice things up a bit with vegan Indian dishes. Just like this colorful bean curry: hot and spicy, it would surely keep you warm after a long day’s work. 

100g or 1/2 cup red kidney beans

100g or 1/2 cup white jumbo beans*

100g or 1/2 cup brown rice

1 medium red onion, minced

1 clove of garlic, pressed

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of ground cumin

1 teaspoon of ground chili

1-2 teaspoons of curry powder

1 can of tomatoes (400g), diced

salt to taste

fresh cilantro for garnishing, if desired

Of course, you can use different kinds or just one sort of beans – I prefer my dishes colorful. 🙂

0. Rinse and soak the bens in cold water the previous evening.

1. Rinse the soaked beans and put them on the stove to boil in separate dishes for each color (so that the dark ones don’t color the other beans). Let them boil for 15 minutes, then cover and let simmer for about 1,5 hours.

2. Rinse the rice and boil it in salty water until almost ready.

3. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the onion, garlic and stir until they turn golden. pour in the spices, stir a couple of times until the mixture begins to be really fragrant.

4. Add the diced canned tomatoes and tomato juice to the pot and let it boil for about 5 minutes

5. Mix in the rinsed beans and rice to the spicy sauce and let it simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the beans turn soft and the sauce gets thick. 

6. Garnish with fresh, chopped cilantro, if desired.

Because of the long cooking time, this is not a quick casserole, but it doesn’t require much work at all. I usually soak the beans one evening, put them to boil the next day when I get home from work (meanwhile we have dinner), I cook the sauce later in the evening, combine everything and then just stir occasionally until ready. Then I just pack it up in our neat little take-away boxes and our lunch is ready to go the next morning.

Carb content of the whole casserole is about 205g, which makes about 51g CH/serving. Enjoy!