Black Bean Curry {With Spinach}

This Black Bean Curry is full of the good stuff. With so many of us trying to eat a little less meat these days it's always a good idea to have a few veggie meals up your sleeve and this veggie curry doesn't disappoint in any way at all. Try it instead of take-out, served with all the usual curry night sides and you'll wonder why you didn't make your own sooner!

Black Bean Curry

Are you finding yourself trying to eat less meat these days? We are, not in a massive way but I do like to have a few veggie dinners ready to make. I want our veggie meals to be every single bit as delicious as their meat counterparts and this black bean curry is just that. It's a properly hearty curry and more than worthy of replacing your Friday night take out.

Black beans are one of my favorite types of beans. I've been making these black bean burgers for almost as long as we've been eating Clean as they look like a regular burger and they eased the kids into new flavors painlessly!

I buy black beans in tins. You can buy them dried in packets but you need to soak them before you use them and that always seems way to much forward planning and preparedness for my family, so tins it is. They're very inexpensive as well so while it is cheaper to buy them dried, they're really cheap to start with. Tins win in this house :)

The veggies in this curry are red peppers and onions. If you have very onion phobic kids you can leave them out of the main curry but you do need them in the paste. I'd recommend blending the paste after it's cooked but before you add it to the main curry. This way you get the flavor of the onion without the 'bits' visible and on display! I've found with my kids it's seeing the onion they're against rather than the taste, so blend away if you need to!

You can also adjust the heat in this curry to suit your family. For really small kids I'd probably leave the chilli out all together. As it is I put half a teaspoon of chopped chilli in this recipe and we find that's spicy enough for everyone to be able to enjoy it. Feel free to add more if yours like chilli.

Why Black Beans?

Black beans, like all legumes (they'll always be beans to me!) are really really good for you. They contain antioxidants, fibre and protein and are also fat free, not that we worry about fat too much, but they are anyway. The high fibre content means they fill you up and keep you full for hours, helped along by the veggies.

And while not the most important thing but still pretty high up there, as I said, they're cheap!

What To Have With This Curry

I tend to serve this curry with whole grain rice and out a pile of these fresh homemade tortilla on the table and let everyone help themselves. You could replace the wholegrain rice with this cauliflower rice for a lighter meal if you wanted to.

Leftovers And Storing

This curry stores really well and even improves with a day or two as the flavors develop. You can store this in the fridge in the pan you've cooked it in with its lid on (once it's cooled down) and then it's easy to reheat when you want to.

While you can reheat this in the microwave, 3 minutes until it's piping hot all the way through, if you're feeding several people it's easier to pop it back on the stove top and bring it to the boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes or so while you make another batch of tortilla.

Add a little extra fresh spinach to the leftovers when they've reheated to get the burst of color from the spinach again.

Adaptations

I've made this with black beans as I like to have some vegetarian options available to me that are easy to make, but really there's nothing to stop you adding chicken instead of the black beans. In this case I'd recommend using chicken breast meat, between half to one breast per person and cooking it in the pan at the stage when you're softening the onion and red pepper.

More Clean Eating Curries

• Healthy Red Thai Curry
• Chicken and mushroom curry
• Clean eating ground beef curry
• Quick and easy Kedgeree

How To Make Black Bean Curry

Ingredients

• For the curry paste
• 1 Tin Chopped tomatoes
• 1 Onion Peeled and diced
• 1 tsp Ginger Peeled and finely diced
• ½ tsp Red chilli Diced very small, optional
• 6 tbsp Water
• 1 tsp Olive oil
• 1 tsp Paprika Ground
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1 tsp Coriander Ground
• ½ tsp Cinnamon Ground
• For the curry
• 1 tin Black beans Drained and rinsed
• 1 Onion Peeled and diced
• 2 Red peppers Washed and diced
• ½ Cup Tomato puree
• 1½ Cups Vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp Maple syrup
• 1 tsp White wine vinegar
• 1 tsp Olive oil
• 3 Handfuls Spinach Washed

Instructions

• Curry paste
• In a large frying pan, fry your onions and ginger in the olive oil until they're soft
• When the onion and ginger is soft, add the spices and fry them for 2 minutes. Add a tablespoon of water if they're sticking
• Add the tomatoes and the water and combine well. Let this simmer for 20 minutes until you have a thick paste. Put to one side
• Curry
• In a saucepan, cook the second onion and the red pepper in the olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes ish
• Add the tomato puree and combine, and then add the vegetable stock
• Add the white wine vinegar and maple syrup and combine
• Add the curry paste into the main curry and simmer for 45 minutes on a low heat
• Once the curry has been simmering for 45 minutes, add the black beans and allow them to cook through for 5 minutes
• Just before serving this curry add the washed spinach and allow it to wilt in the heat
• Serve!

Black Bean Curry Recipe