12 Easy Everyday Indian Dal Recipes
Collection of best 12 Indian dal recipes
Dal is a staple food of India. This is equally loved in all parts of our country. It’s a versatile dish and goes well with rice and roti both.
Dal is one of the easiest dish to make for your main course. Whenever I feel lazy and not in mood to cook anything special, my favorite one is dal. Because
- it’s healthy.
- helps in weight management.
- it’s easy and quick to make.
- last but not least it’s delicious.
Dal or Lentils Soup is really one of the healthiest food that we include in our daily food. It’s a rich source of protein. Protein helps in building the muscle of our body.
Also, high protein keeps us full for longer. So we don’t crave for food (& unhealthy snacking items) for long. Thus it helps in proper weight management.
There are different varieties of lentils available in our country. Each lentil is different in taste. Also the spices and tampering we add give it different taste altogether.
Hing (asafoetida) and cumin seeds play an important role in the preparation of any dal recipes. Hing adds that extra flavor and aroma to dal or lentil soup and makes this extra delicious.
While it comes to dal, I make different varieties of dal. I mix some varieties together to make my dal. These are excellent in fact when we combined different varieties of lentils and compared to individual lentils.
(there are some still in my to-do list and I will keep updating this list soon.)
How To Make Dal or Lentils Soup?
It’s very easy to make dal or lentil soup. The normal process of making dal includes the following steps.
I. Wash and soak dal for 5 minutes.
II. Boil it till lentils are cooked soft. You may pressure cook it or use a saucepan or even instant pot.
I prefer to use my pressure cooker to make my dal as it’s really quick and saves lots of time.
III. Add tampering of aromatic spices to the cooked dal. Garnish with coriander leaves or whatever you want to add.
Read here the top 10 easy and popular Indian dal recipes on the blog.
1.Moong Masoor Dal
Moong masoor dal is one of the everyday dal that I make for lunch or dinner recipes. Instead of making dals individually I mix yellow moong dal and masoor dal. This tastes better than normal moong dal if cooked alone. This is the best way to add variation to our regular dal.
2. Lauki Chana Dal
Lauki chana dal is a divine combination actually. Those who don’t love lauki or bottle gourd may also fall in love with this. Very easy to prepare and a simple dish yet delicious. The process is a little different than regular lentils. Here it’s cooked in a similar way to curries.
3. Whole Masoor Dal
Whole masoor dal or brown lentils soup is one of my favorite dal till now. I just love this dal anytime. It tastes equally great. This is cooked curried in fact. Many times I add whole spices and sometimes I make without whole spices. It’s equally delicious in both ways.
4. Dal Tadka Dhaba Style
This is again a mixed dal made using three dal i.e tur dal or arhar dal, moong dal, and masoor dal. This is again tampered twice to bring in that taste and flavor. Add hing and garlic to enhance the taste of dal. You can also add a smoky flavor to your dal. Goes well with any roti or rice.
5. Methi Moong Dal Fry
Methi moong dal fry is a dry sauteed dish made with soaked moong dal and methi greens. Here dal is just cooked till soft, unlike lentil soup. This is another healthy and yummy dish. Excellent food for diabetics patients also.
6. Odia Dalma (Mix Veggie Lentils Soup)
This is again my all-time favorite dal. This Dalma is an authentic food of Odisha. Especially Puri Daalma is a quite famous dish. Super easy and simple dal dish that is loaded with lots of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Normally lots of vegetables are cooked with dal or lentils making it even healthier. Simple tadka of cumin seeds and garlic or ginger is also enough for this dal. Top it with some dry roasted cumin seeds and red chilies.
7. Hara Moong Dal
Hara moong dal is whole green gram lentils. These are harder like a black gram or urad dal. So you need to soak it for 2 hours or more to cook faster and soft. It tastes great when cooked curried. Saute with aromatic spices to make a complete dish. This is a true curried lentils soup.
8. Dal Makhani
Dal makhani is one of the most popular creamy dal recipe of Punjab and quite popular in North India. This dal is made with whole black gram lentils or sabut urad dal and kidney beans or rajma. But in my recipe, I’ve replaced urad dal with masoor dal. This is easy for kids to digest this rich dal when replaced with masoor dal. At the same time, this tastes equally delicious.
9. Methi Dal
Methi dal is a mixture of lentils and fenugreek leaves. This is cooked like dal. You can either add chopped fenugreek leaves while pressure cook dal. Or saute leaves and mix with cooked dal. Top it with tampering of cumin seeds, garlic, and hing for best. Also, you may add spices to the dal.
10. Dal Palak
Dal palak is another quick dal dish that has added benefits of iron-rich spinach leaves. This is one of the easiest dal with a twist of spinach greens. Just add chopped spinach leaves to the cooker while cooking dal. Then add tampering when cooked. If you have leftover dal you can makeover that by adding sauteed spinach and garlic.
11. Moong Sprouts Curry
This is an easy curried green gram lentils dish. Here we use it in sprouted dal. To make sprouts you need to soak it for 8 hours. Then strain out and wrap with a cloth or paper and keep in a dry and warm place for them to germinate. Or you can buy readymade sprouts to make curry.
12. Dal Amritsari / Langarwali Dal
This is one of the best dal I have ever tried. An authentic Punjabi dal recipe is a specialty that is served in Langar. This is a mixed dal (a mixture of kali urad dal + chana dal). Cooked and tempered with all aromatic spices makes this so flavourful. This is a must-try dal recipe I will say.
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