Creamy One-Pot Chickpea and Spinach Curry

There are nights when I'm perfectly happy to cook a whole dinner with twenty different ingredients and use every pan I own. But if you're like me, nights like those are few and far between. So I quickly fell in love with one-pot dinners that make cleanup so much easier. And this curry is to die for!

This chickpea curry is a regular on our dinner rotation, because it's delicious, but also doesn't even require a cutting board. My kind of dinner.

It's warm, creamy, ridiculously easy, and made mostly from things I can keep (and usually have) in the pantry - which makes it especially good for RV dinners when refrigerator space, counter space, and my willingness to clean a giant mess are all limited.

The coconut milk makes it rich and creamy, the chickpeas give enough substance to make it feel like dinner despite the lack of meat (usually a requirement from my family), and I get a ridiculous amount of spinach into a meal because it wilts down to basically nothing anyway. AND my kids love it! I also add a spoonful of crushed chili garlic paste, because creamy is good, but creamy with a little heat is even better. (If you have kids, just skip it during cooking and add it to your own bowl, so each bowl is spiced accordingly.)

My favorite part is after about ten minutes of simmering, a handful of pantry staples turn into something that tastes like I put way more effort into dinner than I actually did. My daughter said even Gordon Ramsay would love it - haha. I won't put that level of brag on my own dish, but it IS pretty damn tasty.

You can change what you serve it with depending on what you have. Spoon it over a roasted sweet potato (my favorite), serve it over rice, or grab some naan and call it good.

Minimal dishes. Low effort. Full bellies.

Creamy One-Pot Chickpea & Spinach Curry

Serves: about 4-6

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: about 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cans chickpeas, drained

• 1 can coconut milk

• 1 can tomato sauce

• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (jarlic)

• 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder

• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder

• 1/4 teaspoon paprika

• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil

• Crushed chili garlic paste, to taste

• Salt, to taste

• 3-5 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped (I use my hands to roughly rip apart)

Instructions

1. Add the drained chickpeas, coconut milk, tomato sauce, garlic, curry powder, onion powder, paprika, basil, crushed chili garlic paste, and salt to a large pot - you'll need the extra room for the spinach.

2. Stir everything together and bring to a gentle simmer.

3. Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened and the chickpeas are heated through and slightly softened.

4. Add the spinach and stir until completely wilted, about 1-2 minutes.

5. Taste and add additional salt if needed.

6. Serve hot over a roasted sweet potato, white rice, or alongside warm naan.

RV Dinner Note

The curry itself only dirties one pot, and most of the ingredients can live in the pantry until you need them. If I want to keep dinner especially simple, naan is the obvious winner, because there's no second dish to wash.