Let me show you how to make a toddler and kid friendly curry with a creamy tomato sauce. This is mild, sweet, smooth and tasty for young children and my recipe is completely flexible: you can use whatever fillings you like and adjust the spice quantities to suit your own children.
This recipe is my best attempt as an extra kid-friendly, pared down spin off of my popular Creamy Chickpea Curry. It’s taken me a little while to get it right because every time I thought it was perfect, my kids would throw another little curveball my way: “I don’t like the oniiiiiions!” or “It’s too riiiiich” or “It’s too spiiiiicy” (thanks to a new brand of garam masala with some rogue hot chilli powder in it). So it has been almost a year in the making. A YEAR.
But here we are! With a final recipe and, crucially, some guidance for how to customize it, because the recipe I nailed for my own kids may not be quite right for yours.
(Let the record show that they now say they want the spicy version back, but I just couldn’t let this go on any longer. Add some hot chili powder if your kids will appreciate it!)
Why this works for kids:
- Totally smooth creamy sauce. For the kids who don’t like having any “bits” in their sauce, and the parents who don’t want to blend anything. The sauce comes together using smooth ingredients from the ground up.
- Sweet, mild spices and no heat. The dominating flavor is warm and sweet.
- Adjustable quantities of the spices. I’m giving you a range to work with based on how bland or otherwise your kids like their food.
- Ridiculously easy to make with kids underfoot. My kids recipes are generally designed to be made with hangry kids in the house, knowing you’ll be interrupted several times while making it, because that is my life. This recipe is flexible, easy to pick up and put down without a lot of time sensitivity, and depending on what fillings you use there may not even be any chopping to do.
- You can use any filling. Mine is a pea and paneer curry but you can just use the sauce recipe and add whatever you like to it. I have plenty of suggestions coming for you.
Ingredient Tips & Swaps
- We use tomato passata, which is pureed sieved tomatoes. In the US this is referred to tomato puree.
- I use garlic and ginger paste from a tube to make this recipe even easier to make and to avoid the “bits”. You can use fresh though – just swap in the same volume of fresh crushed garlic or grated ginger.
- Your smoked paprika needs to be the sweet kind, not the hot kind.
- Garam masala brings most of the flavor to this sauce. It typically contains warm, sweet spices such as cinnamon and cardamom. Check your ingredients list! Two separate brands I tried had chili in them and made the curry a little hot. Now, I’m no expert in Indian cuisine but I’m pretty sure garam masala should not have chili in it – I guess some brands are going rogue here!
You can pair this sauce with whatever filling you like:
Some ideas though…
- Pea and paneer: A winning combo for my kids, this is what you see pictured. (Full disclosure, one of my kids will leave every single pea uneaten, but at least they’re easy to pick out!?!)
- Chickpea: My kids won’t touch “those weird ball things”, but yours might! White beans would be great too.
- Spinach and potato: Or sweet potato. (For those whose kids will eat greens, see also this Palak Paneer Curry which mine used to love before they decided the color green was the worst.)
- Faux chicken: or the real thing, if you’re not vegetarian, I don’t have to know about it.
- Mixed frozen veggies: If your kids like veggie mixes, go wild!
- Sauteed broccoli. Which I recently discovered is delish in curry.
Easy Accompaniments
- A package of microwave rice is an effortless accompaniment to this curry.
- However – if you don’t want to pay for the microwave rice, and don’t want to cook a fresh pan of rice, I find couscous quicker and easier than rice and my kids really enjoy it with curry. Use this recipe as a starting point and scale up as needed.
- Naan bread is also a winner, but feel equally free to serve with some microwaved tortillas or pita bread. Kids don’t tend to care about authenticity.
Adjusting the spice quantities
The recipe as written has a good amount of flavor, but it is definitely not as punchy as my normal curry recipes.
If you halve the spices, you end up with what I consider to be the minimum quantity of spices necessary to get it tasting like a curry, but it’s pretty bland to an adult palette. Tomato will the dominant flavor here.
Easy Curry for Kids
Let me show you how to make a toddler and kid friendly curry with a creamy tomato sauce. This is mild, sweet, smooth and tasty for young children and my recipe is completely flexible: you can use whatever fillings you like and adjust the spice quantities to suit your own children.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp garlic paste, or fresh crushed garlic
- 1 tsp ginger paste, or fresh grated ginger
- 1 tsp ground cumin, halve for a milder sauce
- 0.5 tsp smoked paprika, halve for a milder sauce
- 2 tsp garam masala, halve for a milder sauce
- ⅓ cup (80 ml) tomato passata , known as tomato puree in the US
- ¼ cup (60 ml) water
- ⅓ cup (120 ml) heavy (double) cream
For a pea and paneer curry
- 8 oz (225 g) paneer cheese
- ½ cup frozen peas
Instructions
- In a large, deep saucepan or saute pan, melt the butter over a low heat and add the garlic and ginger paste. Cook for just a moment until fragrant.1 tbsp butter, 1 tsp garlic paste, 1 tsp ginger paste
- Add the spices and saute for another minute until fragrant.1 tsp ground cumin, 0.5 tsp smoked paprika, 2 tsp garam masala
- Add the tomato passata (puree) and mix through, then add the water and bring to a gentle simmer. Allow to cook, covered, for about 10-15 minutes. You want to stir regularly, but you can mostly leave it to cook while you prepare the filling.1/3 cup tomato passata, 1/4 cup water
- If you're using paneer or another filling that needs to be cooked separately, do that now.If you're using a canned filling such as chickpeas, lentils or beans, add them to the tomato sauce any time and let them simmer. If you're adding frozen peas / veggies to the curry sauce, add them towards the end of the simmer time and once they're defrosted you can move on to the next step.
- Once you're ready to eat, return to the sauce. Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and stir the cream through the tomato sauce. Cook for just a moment to get the temperature back up, then remove from the heat.1/3 cup heavy (double) cream
- Add any fillings that you cooked separately to the pan now and stir through.
- Serve immediately, with rice, couscous and/or naan bread.
Notes
Quantities of cumin, smoked paprika and garam masala: The amounts given will result in a curry that’s reasonably flavorful, not as punchy as my adult curry recipes but not bland either. For kids who really don’t like a lot of flavor, you can halve the amounts and end up with a much more subtle sauce where tomato is more of the dominant flavor. Or go somewhere in the middle!
Nutritional information excludes rice, naan or any accompaniments – it is just for 1/4 of the curry with peas and paneer.
Calories: 288kcal, Carbohydrates: 7g, Protein: 10g, Fat: 25g, Saturated Fat: 15g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 3g, Trans Fat: 0.1g, Cholesterol: 67mg, Sodium: 52mg, Potassium: 175mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 3g, Vitamin A: 754IU, Vitamin C: 10mg, Calcium: 302mg, Iron: 1mg