Instant Pot Mixed Vegetables Spinach Curry
May 16, 2019, Updated Jun 04, 2019
Mixed Vegetables in a creamy Spinach Curry! This vegan and gluten-free curry is made in the Instant Pot and flavored with coriander, cardamom, garam masala & coconut milk!
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Vegan and gluten-free Mixed Vegetables Spinach Curry made in the Instant Pot.
The creamy spinach curry is spiced with coriander, cardamom, garam masala and loaded with veggies like potato, carrots, peas & peppers!
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The thing I love most about my Instant Pot is the convenience to make awesome meals in one go.
Whether it’s rice or pasta or noodles, you can pretty much make everything using your instant pot.
I also love using my instant pot to cook 2 things at one time like in this rice and dal recipe.
Sure, you would have to invest in some instant pot accessories for that but I would say it’s so worth it.
Once you have the accessories, a whole range of recipes to cook in the pot opens up.
Like for this Mixed Vegetables Spinach Curry, I used a steamer basket to steam the veggies while cooking the spinach curry at the same time.
It turned out really good and I am excited to share this recipe with you guys!
This Mixed Vegetables Spinach Curry
✓ is packed with flavors
✓ vegan and gluten-free
✓ makes a comforting meal
✓ goes well with rice, quinoa or any bread
✓ spiced with coriander, garam masala, cardamom
✓ flavored with coconut milk
There’s a long list of ingredients to make this curry however don’t let that list intimidate you.
Once you have gathered all the ingredients, it is a pretty easy recipe to make.
I have used a steamer basket here to steam the veggies and cook the curry at the same time.
Now, you might ask why didn’t I straight away added the veggies to the curry and let it all cook together without using the steamer basket.
Well the reason is that I wanted to puree the spinach once it was cooked and so it just made sense to cook the vegetables and the curry separately.
Once the curry is pureed, you add in the cooked veggies and simmer for 2 minutes and done.
What vegetables have I used in this curry? I used potatoes, carrots, peas and peppers. I let the potatoes, carrots and peas cook with the curry and added the peppers later on.
I wanted the peppers to remain slightly crunchy so I didn’t pressure cook them.
Can you add other veggies? Sure, you can green beans, just steam them with other veggies.
You can add broccoli, asparagus but add them to the curry once it’s pressure cooked, just like I added the peppers.
Don’t pressure cook the broccoli or asparagus with rest of the veggies, they will turn to mush in that time.
Use mixed greens for more flavor! So for this recipe, I have used only spinach. But you can very well use a mix of spinach, mustard greens, turnip, collard greens.
It will add more flavor to the curry. Also you can use ghee in place of oil for that extra flavor.
I hope you guys enjoy this recipe. I enjoyed mine with rice.
PS: Check out the stove-top instructions for this curry in the recipe card below.
Method
1- Press the saute button on the instant pot. Once it displays hot, add the oil and then add the bay leaf and cumin seeds. Let the cumin seeds sizzle for few seconds.
2- Then add the onion, green chili, garlic and ginger. Saute for 3 to 4 minutes until the onions are light brown.
3- Add the chopped tomatoes and deglaze the pot using your spatula. Make sure there’s no burnt bits stuck at the bottom after sauteing the onions.
Add the spices- coriander powder, garam masala, red chili powder and cardamom powder. Also add the salt.
4- Start adding the spinach, little at a time.
5- Add little and wait until the spinach leaves wilt and then add some more. Keep adding little by little until all the leaves are wilted.
6- Then add 1/2 cup of water.
7- Place a steamer basket on top of the curry. To the steamer basket, now add the cut potatoes, carrots and green peas.
8- Close the pot with its lid. Press the manual or pressure cook button and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes. Make sure the pressure valve is in the sealing position.
Let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes and then do a quick pressure release by manually moving the pressure valve from sealing to venting position.
9- Open the lid and carefully remove the steamer basket from the pot. Also remove the bay leaf.
10- Then use an immersion blender to puree the spinach. You can also use a regular blender, just wait for the content in the pot to cool down a bit before you put them in a regular blender.
11- Once you pureed the spinach, add the coconut milk and stir and then press the saute button.
12- Add the cooked veggies back into the pot along with sliced red pepper. Cover the pot with a lid and let the curry simmer on saute for 2 minutes.
Add lemon juice and mix. Sprinkle some cardamom powder (optional) and serve mix vegetables spinach curry with rice or roti or quinoa.
If you’ve tried this Instant Pot Mixed Vegetables Spinach Curry Recipe then don’t forget to rate the recipe! You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram to see what’s latest in my kitchen!
Instant Pot Mixed Vegetables Spinach Curry
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon oil or ghee, 15 ml
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 medium red onion chopped
- 1 green chili chopped
- 6-7 large garlic cloves chopped
- 1 inch ginger chopped
- 2 medium tomatoes chopped
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
- 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder or add more to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder
- 3/4-1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1 lb spinach
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 large potato cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1-2 medium carrots cut into rounds
- 1/3 cup green peas frozen & soaked in warm water for 5 minutes
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons coconut milk I used full fat
- 1 medium red pepper sliced
- 1/2 lemon juice of
Instructions
- Press the saute button on the instant pot. Once it displays hot, add the oil and then add the bay leaf and cumin seeds. Let the cumin seeds sizzle for few seconds.
- Then add the onion, green chili, garlic and ginger. Saute for 3 to 4 minutes until the onions are light brown.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and deglaze the pot using your spatula. Make sure there's no burnt bits stuck at the bottom after sauteing the onions. Add the spices- coriander powder, garam masala, red chili powder and cardamom powder. Also add the salt.
- Start adding the spinach, little at a time. Add little and wait until the spinach leaves wilt and then add some more. Keep adding little by little until all the leaves are wilted. Then add 1/2 cup of water.
- Place a steamer basket on top of the curry. To the steamer basket, now add the cut potatoes, carrots and green peas.
- Close the pot with its lid. Press the manual or pressure cook button and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes. Make sure the pressure valve is in the sealing position. Let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes and then do a quick pressure release by manually moving the pressure valve from sealing to venting position.
- Open the lid and carefully remove the steamer basket from the pot. Also remove the bay leaf.
- Then use an immersion blender to puree the spinach. You can also use a regular blender, just wait for the content in the pot to cool down a bit before you put them in a regular blender.
- Once you pureed the spinach, add the coconut milk and stir and then press the saute button.
- Add the cooked veggies back into the pot along with sliced red pepper. Cover the pot with a glass lid and let the curry simmer on saute for 2 minutes.
- Add lemon juice and mix. Sprinkle some cardamom powder (optional) and serve mix vegetables spinach curry with rice or roti or quinoa.
Stove-Top Instructions
- To make this curry on stove top, follow all the steps as it is until adding the spinach. After you have added the spinach, cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for 10 minutes. Then puree the spinach and add water and coconut milk to the curry. Add the veggies and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until the veggies are cooked (cut the potatoes little small if cooking on stove-top so that they can cook faster).
Notes
- If you aren't a fan of coconut milk, you can use cashew cream. You can even use heavy cream if you are not vegan. Even though, just add 2-3 tablespoons of heavy cream. It will be enough.
- Use ghee in place of oil for extra flavors if you are not vegan.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
If I am adding veggies after spinach is cooked, do I still need to pressure cook for 5 mins? Typically pressure cooking time for other spinach recipes is 0 mins.
we are doing pot-in-pot cooking here hence extra time. I am not sure I get you? You mean you want to pressure cook the spinach first and then add the veggies later and then pressure cook again? Yeah if you are just cooking the spinach alone, you can do 1 minute.
Turned out amazing.I skipped any kind of cream and it tasted very good!!
Awesome recipe
Thanks for this lovely recipe Manali, it’s Simply delicious. We often eat palak paneer so this recipe came as a refreshing change. I followed the recipe to the T, was loved by my family. Will be trying this again for sure.
glad to know! 🙂
Superb recipe. Can I add tofu or chickpeas? How will the pressure cooking time change?
Thanks!
you can add tofu, no change in time. You can add canned chickpeas, raw chickpeas will not cook in this much time.
Very nice recipe. I was looking for coconut milk recipe for long time. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for the recipe Manali. I do not have a steamer. Any suggestions?
Then I would suggest making the curry and then once you puree it, add veggies like peppers, broccoli, tofu/paneer, green peas and simmer for 3-4 minutes (close with a glass lid and then simmer). Hope this helps!
Manali does it again! This is the third recipe we have made from this blog, and the third one to knock our socks off! No changes needed, delicious as-is! Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your talent Manali!! 😀
So happy to hear that Chelsea! 🙂
Another winner Manali!
I made this a few days ago. It was soooo good and it even convinced my mother to give Indian food another try. She LOVED it!
That is so good to know! 🙂 Thank you for sharing your feedback!
This was SO good! I made it tonight on the stove top since I needed my IP to make perfect rice. Only negative was it took over an hour for the potatoes and carrots to soften, even though I cut the potatoes small and the carrots thin. I think some fresh cilantro might be good mixed in at the end as well.
Hi Nancy, I am glad you liked it! Hmm not sure why potatoes would not cook in 1 hour, wow that’s a lot of time. If you have cut them small, 15 minutes should have been good enough.
I’m thinking it’s because it was spinach puree with other stuff in it rather than boiling in water. I just made it again today and had the same results with long cooking time for the potato and carrot pieces. But at least I was able to plan for it!
hmm very strange that it doesn’t work for you while it works perfectly for me all the time. Glad you were still able to plan for it though!
Seems healthy and tasty. I don’t have insta pot but will definitely make on stove top.
Thank you