How to Make Vegan Indian Food

Do you love to eat Indian food? I mean REALLY love to eat it? When you think about cooking it do you feel intimidated about using unfamiliar spices and specialty ingredients and the complexity of cooking a potentially new-to-you cuisine?

We sure were! We were hesitant to purchase lentils, beans, grains, and spices we didn't know if we'd like just to have them sit in our pantry, sad, lonely, and going stale.

Our love of curries spurred us on and made a commitment to cooking vegan Indian meals for one whole month!

We found a sweet, family-owned, small company we felt good about supporting called Pure Indian Foods and ordered our organic ingredients. (We live on a wee island and can't source these ingredients locally.) Our package arrived with the aroma of coriander, mace, curry leaves, turmeric, amchoor, ajwain, black salt, cumin and mustard seeds, and dried red chilis, and a whole new world of pulses! 

Pulses are a category that includes lentils, dried beans, and peas. We've since fallen in love with Moong Dal, Urad Dal, and Chana Dal. You'll find them in recipe posts on this blog like: 

(Click on the images and the recipe will open up in a new window.) 

We found out how easy it was to make our own curry spice blends and condiments and fell absolutely in love with our Spicy Tomato Achar! We put it on toast with vegan cream cheese and sprouts for breakfast :-) Have a look at these! 

We found that Indian cuisine is less expensive to make than many other styles of cooking and that we can get a full nutritional profile in one pot of dal. 

We still make vegan Indian cuisine often, about once per week. We have to make room for Italian, Thai, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Japanese... So many tasty vegan meals, so little time!!!

If you've love Indian food and have been hesitant to make it at home, give yourself a one-month challenge and ignite your taste buds! 

To help you in your culinary exploration, we have a free Vegan Indian Cooking Guide for you! 

Here's what you'll learn: 

• How to simply set up your pantry
• How to use the spices of India
• How to make essential condiments, chutneys, and pickles
• Easy Vegan Indian Recipes
• How to help your kids love Indian food
• Where to source spices and supplies
• Common substitutions for uncommon ingredients
• Indian cuisine culture

You'll also find additional links to more vegan Indian recipes and in-depth how-to articles.

Take yourself on a culinary adventure!

If India is too big of a jump for you and you're just trying to sort out how to efficiently and cost-effectively prepare vegan meals, let us get you set up! Get on our waitlist for: Mastering the Foundations of Nutritious Plant-Based Cooking course!  No obligation! We'll let you know when enrollment opens. 

Written by Your Vegan Family 

Stacy and Markus live an adventurous vegan lifestyle and write articles about their experiences cooking global vegan cuisine, creating businesses, raising vegan kids, and traveling through more than 65 countries. They earned degrees in molecular biology and acupuncture, consulted over decades for healthcare companies and individuals, created businesses in Asian medicine and cultural immersion, and taught yoga in myriad venues.

We’ve learned a lot from eating a plant-based diet for 25 years and are eager to help you go vegan and stay vegan. Learn more on our About Us page.

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