Dal Palak/ Spinach Lentils Soup
Spinach lentils soup or Dal palak is a super food as full of nutrition and healthy source of vitamins and minerals. Dal Palak is a diabetic friendly food.
This is prepared by mixing two main ingredients lentils (dal) and spinach (Palak). You can take any type of lentils for this. I have taken yellow tur dal for this dish. Quantity of spinach you can adjust as per your taste. Tur dal is a great source of protein. Spinach is source of Iron and calcium and dietary fibres. so this combination makes a healthy and nutritious food.
This can be served as soup, as main course with rice, roti etc. This is a great idea for weight-loss recipe where you will get all the protein and essential nutrients that your body requires. Again spinach in low in carbohydrate.
This recipe can be prepared in two different methods. When I am in hurry and in no mood to cook then I do pressure cook spinach and lentils together and then give it a good tampering with spices, onion, garlic.
The second method prepare dal separately. Then saute and cook the spinach with all onion, garlic and spices. Then add the lentils or dal to it and mix well and simmer for 3 minutes. This method is also quick if you have leftover dal and some spinach in your fridge.
I love spinach so much that I try to use it in any ways in my daily diet. Try out my other spinach recipes.
Spinach Lentils Soup
Ingredients
- Tur dal- ½ cup
- Palak/ Spinach – 1 ½ bowl finely chopped
- Salt as per taste
- Turmeric Powder – ¼ teaspoon
- Tomato –1 medium Diced
- Ghee/ Oil – 3-4 Tbsp
- Cumin Seeds- 1 teaspoon
- Red Chilli – Dry 2-3
- Coriander Powder – 1 teaspoon
- Chilli Powder – 1 teaspoon
- Garlic – 5-6 buds finely chopped/ crushed
- Green Chilli- 1- 2 sliced/ chopped
Instructions
Method I
- Wash dal properly and put in a pressure cooker. Add diced tomato and finely chopped spinach to it. Add turmeric powder & salt as per taste.
- Pressure-cook for 2 – 3 whistles. Then let it cool before opening the lid.
- Place a small pan on medium to low heat.
- Put ghee or refined oil in it. Once the oil is hot put cumin seeds and let it crackle. Add a pinch of hing/ asafoetida. Put green chilli, red chilli and chopped garlic.
- Once garlic turns slight brown add coriander powder, chilli powder and immediately take out from the flame else the masala will get burnt.
- Then put the tadka in cooked palak/ spinach dal and close the lid so that the flavour will be added to the dal.
- Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with chapatti or rice.
Method II
- Pressure cook dal for 4 whistles. Add tomatoes, salt and turmeric powder in dal while cooking.
- You can use left over dal also in this method.
- Heat 4 - 5 tsp oil in a kadai. Add 1 tsp ghee for better taste. Add 1 tbsp cumin seeds, 1 tbsp finely chopped garlic, 2 - 3 green chillies slits, chopped onion. saute till garlic turns light brown.
- if you have missed adding tomatoes or want to add some more here you can add chopped tomatoes. Once tomatoes are soft and tender add coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and 1 tsp hing. Mix all wee.
- Add finely chopped spinach leaves. Add little salt for spinach only as you have already added salt to the dal.
- saute for 3 -4 minutes till spinach leaves are cooked. It wont take more than 5 minutes for the spinach to get cooked.
- Once spinach is cooked, add the dal or lentils to the kadai. Mix well. and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes.
- Season with coriander leaves. Serve hot with roti/ paratha or even with Rice.
Notes
Here I would request you to read other similar posts like mushroom matar masala, paneer tikka masala, gatte ki sabzi, palak paneer. Also read matar paneer curry, dum aloo, bagara baingan, lauki kofta curry, malai kofta curry, shaam savera curry.
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