Soft, melt in the mouth potatoes in a sweet creamy tomato curry sauce – this is pure comfort food! It’s an easy to make, one pan dish that is ready in about 30 minutes. A simple side dish, or you can add extra veggies such as spinach, peas or mushrooms and serve it as the main meal.
So you have some potatoes knocking around, maybe you have some other veggies in the fridge or freezer, and you want to whip up a cheap and cheerful but very hearty meal? This is it! This is the recipe.
With our big homegrown potato harvest this autumn I decided I’d create a potato curry recipe. Lately I have been loving creating curry recipes and readers seem to like them too, so my mission was clear. It was, however, easier said than done! I tried it every which way, with lots of interesting ideas that didn’t end up working, and in the end my favorite version happened to be the simplest – and that’s good news for all of us!
So why was this potato curry the winner?
- It’s a one pot recipe with a relaxed method, lots of down time while the potatoes simmer and soften.
- It is creamy, comforting, hug in a bowl kind of stuff, thanks to the melt in the mouth potatoes and the luxurious thick sauce.
- It’s got a fairly sweet flavor profile, but with a little smoky spicy kick too – and you can control the heat!
- You can add anything to it! I loved it with spinach or mushrooms, while Mr. Veggie loves it with peas. There’s room in the sauce to squeeze in some other ingredients, so have a dig through your fridge and freezer and do whatever feels right.
See how easy it is?
As ever, a full printable recipe card with more detailed photos is to follow – but this is the gist of it.
Ingredient Tips & Substitutions
- Potatoes. Regular white potatoes! Mine are homegrown garden potatoes. I didn’t like the skin on these particular potatoes, so I peeled them all before using in the curry, but you don’t have to do that. It’s up to you!
- Cream and yogurt give the sauce its creaminess and thick luxurious texture. I tried this curry with just cream and found it a little too sweet. I definitely craved the cooling tang that yogurt offers, but if you don’t have any, add a few squeezes of lemon juice and it should still be delicious.
- Onions can be any color but I lean towards sweet white or red if possible.
- I like to use some whole spices in this curry – cumin seeds and fennel seeds. If you don’t have cumin seeds, you can use ground cumin instead – use 1 teaspoon. If you don’t have fennel seeds, you could just leave them out, or you could add more cumin seeds or another type of seed if you like. It’s all pretty easygoing.
- The tomato paste could be swapped for some passata (pureed tomatoes) if you wish – you would use 1/2 a cup of passata and you may also want to reduce the vegetable broth by 1/4 cup to compensate for the extra liquid.
- The spinach is optional – it’s my favorite thing to add in, and there are plenty of other good options – read on for some ideas…
Let’s talk chili and spice
You can control the heat of this curry with which chili powder you use.
I use:
- 1/2 teaspoon of mild ground chili powder – we’re talking pure chili powder, not a blend, so there’s still a kick to it!
- 1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika for smokiness, but no additional heat.
You can change up the ratios:
- 1 full teaspoon of smoked paprika and no chili powder will be mild.
- 1 full teaspoon of chili powder and no smoked paprika could make for a pretty hot curry but it does depend on the chili powder, and this may take some trial and error.
I wouldn’t recommend using the kind of supermarket chili powder that is actually a Tex Mex blend, full of other ingredients (this is common in the US, not so much elsewhere). If that is all you have, you can certainly give it a try, but those blends are all very different so I can’t be 100% sure how the flavor will land.
Add-ins for your Potato Curry
- Fresh or frozen spinach. Fresh, chopped spinach can be mixed in alongside the cream in Step 6. Frozen spinach needs to be defrosted and have the liquid squeezed out of it first, and then it can be added right at the end of Step 5. Adding it to the pan will cool the sauce down, so let it simmer for a few minutes until the pan is bubbling again, before moving on to Step 6.
- Kale, chard or other greens which take a little more time to cook can be added towards the end of Step 5. Stir through until they are starting to wilt, then move on.
- Peas or small frozen veggie mixes. These add a great pop of sweetness, and most of us have some in the freezer so that’s an easy win. Add them at the end of Step 5, once the potatoes are cooked, and make sure they are defrosted before adding the cream.
- Larger fresh or frozen hard vegetables such as broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, carrot, eggplant, squash or cauliflower. I would recommend pre-cooking these (steaming, roasting or pan frying – whatever works) before adding them into the pan. For vegetables such as mushrooms that leach a lot of liquid when they cook, be mindful to get all of the excess moisture cooked off before adding them to the curry. Mix through the curry at the end of Step 5.
- Canned chickpeas, kidney beans or lentils. A super easy option – just drain and mix through somewhere towards the end of Step 5!
Pair me with…
Easy Creamy Potato Curry
Soft, melt in the mouth potatoes in a sweet creamy tomato curry sauce – this is pure comfort food! It's an easy to make, one pan dish that is ready in about 30 minutes. A simple side dish, or you can add extra veggies such as spinach, peas or mushrooms and serve it as the main meal.
Ingredients
- vegetable oil or butter, for cooking
- 1 lb (450 g) potatoes, peeled and chopped into bite sized pieces – weight is after peeling
- 1 small onion, finely diced
- 1 Tbsp chopped garlic
- 1 Tbsp chopped ginger
- 1.5 tsp cumin seeds
- ½ tsp fennel seeds
- ½ tsp turmeric
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp chili powder
- 1 Tbsp garam masala
- 3 Tbsp tomato paste
- 1.5 cups (350 ml) vegetable stock
- ⅓ cup (80 ml) heavy (double) cream
- 3 Tbsp greek yogurt
- ½ lemon , cut into wedges
- Optional: additional veggies such as spinach or frozen peas
Instructions
- Saute your aromatics. Heat a little oil or butter in a deep saute pan, over a low-medium heat. Add the onions and saute until soft, then add the garlic and ginger and saute for just another minute to bring out their aroma.1 small onion, 1 Tbsp chopped garlic, 1 Tbsp chopped ginger, vegetable oil or butter
- Add the spices. Start with the seeds. Keeping the heat low, mix those through until the fragrance is released. Then add the ground spices and mix through – you may want to add another glug or oil or pat of butter at this point. Once everything is well mixed and fragrant, move on immediately – we don't want the spices to burn!1.5 tsp cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1 Tbsp garam masala
- Add the potatoes and mix through the pan until they are coated in the spices and oil / butter.1 lb potatoes
- Add the tomato paste. Mix through to get the potatoes well coated and continue to saute for a couple of minutes (again, you may want to add some extra oil or butter at this point if things are dry or sticky). Add lots of salt and pepper to taste.3 Tbsp tomato paste
- Add the vegetable stock to the pan, cover and simmer for about 20-30 minutes. Regularly lift the lid and stir through, checking for readiness. The sauce will reduce and thicken as the potatoes cook. Different potato types and different sized pieces will all cook at different rates so it's hard to give you an exact time. Just keep checking, and once the potatoes are cooked through, move on.If you're using any defrosted frozen vegetables, precook them and add them now. Stir through and move on.1.5 cups vegetable stock
- Add the cream and mix through. Keep the heat low but get the sauce heated back up again. This is also the time to add any fresh spinach or kale, if using.1/3 cup heavy (double) cream
- Remove from the heat and add the yogurt and cilantro, stirring through.3 Tbsp greek yogurt
- Serve, with lemon wedges for squeezing.1/2 lemon
Calories: 263kcal, Carbohydrates: 29g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 15g, Saturated Fat: 6g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g, Monounsaturated Fat: 4g, Trans Fat: 0.04g, Cholesterol: 23mg, Sodium: 472mg, Potassium: 728mg, Fiber: 4g, Sugar: 5g, Vitamin A: 873IU, Vitamin C: 29mg, Calcium: 66mg, Iron: 2mg
Thanks for this recipe, it looks like another one of yours I would like to try. As I don’t have a sautee pan, do you think using a large saucepan for this recipe would affect step 3 in particular?
It will still work out fine! In Step 3, the potatoes might not be in a single layer at the bottom of the pan (it does depend on the size of your saucepan of course) so they just need lots of mixing to get them all coated, but that won’t be an issue at all. Sometimes changing to a pan that is deeper but less wide can affect how the liquid evaporates, you may find it’s too soupy at the end, but you can just simmer with the lid off for the last 5 minutes or so to thicken it up if needs be. I hope it all works out for you!