TL;DR: A chana masala recipe for when you want to show off.
Chana masala, sometimes also referred to as Chole or Chholay or some similar variation, is definitive Indian comfort food. I grew up eating this all the time (thanks mom!) and I would go out on a limb and say that this wondrous stew of garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas) might rank as my death row last meal. I need it.
This chana masala recipe was born after years of tweaking, adjusting, and general obsessing. With that said, one of the best things about this is it’s flexibility; add/remove heat, spice, etc per your preference and it will still be delicious. Eating with rice? Add more water. Eating with nan or roti? Less agua. Eating by itself like a savage? That’s cool too. Vegan? Swap the ghee with oil. Oh, and this is awesome with coconut milk, just add towards the end and simmer for a bit. Get crazy.
While this particular recipe doesn’t take any shortcuts and uses dry beans, whole roasted-then-ground spices, fresh chopped aromatics, etc, there are lots of ways to simplify it significantly. The first — and obvious one — is to use canned garbanzo beans. This completely eliminates the soak time and makes prep work a whole lot easier. Just make sure to strain out the can liquid and give the beans a quick rinse before adding to the pot. Also, you can totally use spice powders instead of whole spices (e.g.: ground coriander, chili powder, ground cinnamon, etc). I like the ritual and resulting aroma of fresh roasting/grinding spices but as long as your ground spices aren’t stale, go ahead and use ’em if you want to. Also you could use ginger and garlic paste instead of peeling and chopping the fresh stuff. So on and so forth, get creative.
Chana Masala (Chole)
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried garbanzos/chickpeas (or two 15oz cans of beans)
- 2 tbsp ghee (or butter/oil)
- 2 large onions
- 1 inch fresh ginger peeled
- 4 clove garlic
- 2-4 thai chilies
- 2 large tomatoes (or 12oz canned)
- 2-4 dried red chillies
- 4 cardamoms shells removed
- 3 cloves
- 1/2 cinnamon stick
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 peppercorns
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds
- 1 tbsp coriander seeds
- 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp garam masala powder
- 1/2 tsp dried mango powder (amchur)
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- salt
Instructions
- Soak garbanzos overnight or quick-soak. (or nah if using canned beans). Cook beans in salted water over high heat and bring to a boil; lower heat and simmer, covered, until softened, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours and set aside.
- Dice one of the onions and reserve. Puree the remaining onion with the tomatoes and garlic.
- In a big pot, heat the ghee then add the reserved onions along with a pinch of salt and sauté for ~20 mins or until caramelized (stir periodically to make sure it doesn't burn). Add pureed onion/tomato/garlic and sauté for another 5-10 mins.
- While onions are cooking, heat up a separate pan and dry roast the dried red chillies, cardamom seeds, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf, peppercorns, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, coriander seeds until lightly roasted and aromatic (make sure not to burn anything, especially the chillies). Grind all of this into a fine powder, using a powerful blender, spice/coffee grinder, or whatever works. Mince ginger.
- When the onion/tomato mixture is cooked down and the oil starts to seep out, add the ground spice mixture and minced ginger from step 4 to the onion mixture, along with the turmeric/garam masala/amchur and cook for a couple of minutes.
- Add the garbanzo beans, and as much of the cooking water as you want. Cook for another 10 minutes or so to let the flavors soak into the beans.
- Add cilantro. Add salt to taste.
- Stuff face and promptly ascend to nirvana.
Trying out yo chana masala today doggie. Just discovered your website. Nice work!! 👍👌🤙💥
Dude!!! What an honor brother! I have v2.0s of a lot of these recipes that I need to post haha. Like nowadays I pressure cook the garbanzos with 1/2 tsp baking soda and a couple of black tea bags, and I use pomegranate powder instead of mango powder. Anyways, thanks man, hope all is well. Quarantine has me baking bread now so I need your wisdom!!!