Easy Punjabi Chole masala - Homestyle Chickpea Curry

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When I was a kid in Delhi, my mom would prepare chickpea curries similar to this one. Unfortunately, no offense to my mom, but I didn’t like it very much when she did! She was very inconsistent with her preparation! The chickpeas would either be not cooked enough, overcooked, or just right! Whenever she would nail her recipe, my sister and I would say “Mumma, make it exactly how you did it! Last time was perfect!” However, she just could never redo her chole the perfect way we knew and loved, so I would be averse to having it.

After I arrived in Canada, it had been quite some time before I started making chole myself. I was always turned off by it from my experiences growing up. One of my messages on this platform is that innovation comes from an open mind, so I tried to be open minded about it. Maybe this sounds conceited, but I know I can make good food! There have been other occasions where I didn’t like a dish at a restaurant or prepared by someone else, but when I tried my hand at the dish, it turned out fantastic! So, I thought, let’s give chole a go!

The key to a delicious chole is to really cook your chickpeas perfectly! If you mess this up, it will ruin the entire flavor of your masala, and that will be very disappointing! Don’t worry though, this recipe will show you how to cook your chickpeas perfectly so that you’re set up for success for an amazing chole masala! The chickpea water is also very important, because it has tremendous flavors that will really enhance your dish!

With that being said, let’s get to preparing an extremely yummy and easy chole recipe!

About This Punjabi Chole Masala Recipe

This classic Punjabi chole masala recipe is what I call a “homestyle” chole. To be honest, at first I wanted to share a street-style version of the dish, but turns out you need a very special ingredient to get that lovely brown color - TEA! I’ll make a street-style version at some point (I now have the recipe, which you can check out here!), but for now enjoy this homestyle variation! Here, the color of the masala is a bit redder because of the tomatoes.

Additionally, this simple chole recipe is much milder than the street-side variations. The street-side recipes are much more chatak as we’d say! I can’t give a direct translation to what that means, but let’s get as close as possible and say it’s a combination of tangy, spicy, and hot! This is the chole I grew up loving as a kid, but now that I’ve nailed this homestyle recipe, it certainly now has a place in my heart and I can appreciate both! I hope you will as well!

This Punjabi chole masala recipe has an excellent balance of a couple of classic spices, incorporating hing, cumin seeds, chana masala, turmeric and deggi mirch, or red chili powder in our masala. “Masala” refers to the base of our gravy for the chickpeas. I’m not going to be adding too much here so that it’s not too hot but instead we can appreciate the wonderful flavors at play here. I also like to add tamarind to this curry. The tamarind adds some sourness to our curry, which complements the creamy chickpeas and spicy masala quite nicely!

What’s amazing about all of these incredible flavors is that the chickpeas truly soak them all up! But to add on to this, the chickpeas themselves will also be loaded with flavors! We’ll be cooking our chickpeas with fragrant whole spices including bay leaf, cinnamon, and clove. At the end, we reserve our cooking water so that it’s infused with our masala to create an extremely flavorful gravy!

Tell Me About Tamarind

Tamarind is actually a type of tropical fruit that is native to Africa but also grows in many tropical regions, including India. The pods produced are filled with a sweet-sour paste fruit. Tamarind is known as the “date of India,” because of its taste! Not only used for cooking, but it also has medicinal properties. For instance, in its beverage form, it is used to treat diarrhea, constipation, fever and peptic ulcers. Wound healing can also be aided from the tamarind’s bark. Tamarind has many nutritional benefits; it is rich in magnesium, potassium and iron, and it contains Vitamins B1, B2 and B3. For more information about tamarind, refer to this article by Healthline.

You may have seen tamarind paste in the Asian section of your grocery store. In this recipe, I’ll be using a piece from a fresh block of tamarind, soaked in water. This water will be added to the masala at the end to add a really subtle sweetness to our curry!

Tips for Making a Great Punjabi Chole Masala Recipe

• Plan ahead and soak the beans for at least 4-6 hours before cooking. While an Instant Pot can cook rajma from dried, I find the quality of the softness and doneness in the rajma is not the same as pre-soaked and then cooked.
• Season the cooking water before cooking the chickpeas and add aromatics such as cloves and cinnamon. This will inject the beans with a ton of flavour!
• Reserve the cooking water for the chickpeas, it contains a lot of flavour and provides the classic colour we all love in chole masala.
• The base flavour of this curry comes from the “masala” that we cook with the puréed onions, ginger, garlic and tomatoes. Make sure that you cook the masala well, until reddish brown and almost dried out.
• Don’t over-do the amount of spices. It is easy to get excited and add excess spices in anticipation of the final dish. Trust me, tomato and onion mixture will shine through and add wonderful flavours with the right amount of spices.

Ingredients for Punjabi Chole Masala

Let’s go over the ingredients we’ll be using for this homestyle Punjabi chole masala recipe:

To Cook the Chickpeas

• Chickpeas
• Cinnamon stick
• Cloves
• Bay leaf
• Water

For the Chole Masala

• Tamarind
• Olive oil/Ghee
• Cumin seeds
• Hing
• Garlic cloves
• Ginger
• Onions
• Tomato
• Chana masala
• Turmeric
• Deggi mirch
• Cilantro
• Salt
• Onions and green chilies, for garnish

How to Make Punjabi Chole Masala

To Prepare the Chickpeas

Stovetop Pressure Cooker

Add chickpeas to stovetop pressure cooker and add 4 times the volume of water, along with salt, bay leaf, cinnamon stick and clove. Cook for 2-3 whistles on high heat, then turn down the heat to medium and cook for 15-20 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally.

Instant Pot

Add chickpeas to the Instant Pot and add 4 times the volume of water, along with salt, bay leaf, cinnamon stick and clove. Set the Instant Pot to Pressure Cook mode on High and cook for 15 minutes. If using dried beans, cook for 40 minutes. Ensure Instant Pot is in Sealing mode. Let the pressure release naturally (about 20 minutes).

To Prepare the Curry

1. Begin by adding the ginger, garlic, and onion in a food processor with a bit of water. Purée until everything is well combined.
2. Heat a pot on medium heat and add ghee/olive oil. When the pot is hot, add hing and cumin seeds. Cook until cumin seeds turn reddish brown and aromatic.
3. Add onion, ginger, garlic puree. Once the mixture starts to change colour add chana masala and turmeric. Mix well and continue cooking until mixture is dry and golden brown. Add a splash of water if mixture gets too dry and starts to stick.
4. Puree the tomatoes in a food processor. Add tomato purée and bring to boil. Add 1/2 tsp salt and deggi mirch. Cook with a lid on until the mixture turns redder and becomes dry, about 7-15 minutes. Keep stirring from time to time.
5. Add cooked chickpeas. Stir well, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Strain the tamarind water and add to the pot, followed by 3-4 cups of the cooking chickpea water to make a runny gravy. Season with salt and simmer on medium low heat until the gravy starts to thicken.
6. When the gravy is thick, remove the lid and garnish with cilantro. Serve with a side of fresh red onions, green chiles and lime if desired

How to Serve This Chole Recipe Punjabi Style

You can serve this homestyle chickpea curry in many ways! I usually serve mine simply with basmati rice, and you can check out How to Make the Best Basmati Rice for tips and tricks on achieving that perfect fluffy rice!

However, on a special occasion, you may want to make your very own bhature! Bhature are puffy fried breads made with semolina and all-purpose flour. They’re similar to puris except puris are made with atta flour, and bhature are fried in vegetable or peanut oil, where puris are fried in ghee. Of course, the biggest difference is that bhature are huge and puris are quite small, but both are fun and puffy!

I’ve only ever made bhature once before. The taste was definitely fantastic, but of course not as huge as you find them at restaurants and street-side! However, this is because I used a small pot to fry. If I had fried them in a larger pot, my bhature would have been much larger! I can’t wait to make this again and eventually I’ll definitely have a recipe, so be sure to let me know in the comments if you’d like to see a bhature recipe! I guarantee that making your own bhature will be lots of fun and really make this chickpea curry feel like a complete and wholesome meal!

Another popular bread to serve with your chole masala is kulche. It is a bit difficult to describe, but kulche is like a very soft Greek pita! This is one of my favorites for sure! Admittedly, I’ve actually never made kulche at home before, but this is definitely on my list of breads to try out!