Insanely delicious & addictive Indian classic dal. Perfect for weeknight! So easy & healthy, no more takeaway!
It’s an authentic culinary dish from North Indian cuisine. It has only a handful of ingredients but yet the flavor and the spices with the fragrance ghee make the dish finger licking good for all seasons. I make dal always at least once in a week. But I really do not take pictures of it as it will be very late for me for have the food. I always feel it is delicious and perfect comfort food. And also healthy. Dal can be made in different ways using different dal like Normal simple dal, dal tadka, dal fry using different dal. I really love to make dal because it is simple and very comforting food. I make sure I make them once in a week atleast. I usually make them on a weekday because it just takes 10 minutes for me in a kitchen. I pressure cook them, meanwhile I chop some veggies for side dish. You can replace the dal with any dal you want.
You can have this as soup. This dal taste great with plain rice and some papad/veggies stir fry or paratha & some salad.
Vegan Note: use any oil in this recipe instead of ghee.
My other Favorite Dal/ Lentil recipes: Dal with caramelized shallots, Lasooni Dal Tadka/ Garlic Tempered Lentils, Trevti dal/ Three Lentil dal, Gujarati Surati dal/ Peanut Tomato Lentil Recipe, Chana dal Paratha/ stuffed Lentil Paratha, Tomato dal Rasam/ Tomato Soup,Indian Style Lentils/ South Indian sambar, Bisibelabath/Hot spicy lentil Rice, crunchy lentil nuggets/Uppu seedai,spinach with lentils/ Keerai Moolagootal.
- • Green Moong Dal – 1 cup
- • Tomatoes – 2 medium sized, chopped
- • Onions – 1 medium sized, chopped
- • Green Chilli – 1, chopped
- • Garlic – 5, finely chopped
- • Ginger – ½ inch, finely chopped
- • Red chili powder – 1 tsp
- • Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
- • Cumin powder – ½ tsp
- • Garam Masala – 1 tsp
- • Jaggery – ½ tbsp
- • Lemon juice – ½ tbsp
- • Dry Methi leaves – 1 tsp
- • Coriander leaves – to garnish
- • Salt – 2 tbsp
For Tempering: - • Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
- • Dry Red chillies – 3, broken
- • Asafoetida – a pinch
- • Curry leaves – 1 sprig
- Rinse lentils and soak for an hour. And keep it in pressure cooker with tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, green chilles, turmeric powder with 3.5 -4 cups of water for 7-8 whistles in medium heat .
- Mash the lentils using a wooden spoon or a masher to a smooth mixture.
- Add the ½ tsp red chilli powder, cumin powder, garam masala and salt to the dal.
- Bring the dal to boil in medium-low heat for 5 minutes and add jaggery and methi leaves to it in this step. If you find the consistency to the dal becomes thick, add more water. If you think it’s too liquidy, boil it for few more minutes.
- It’s time to temper by heating oil or ghee in a pan, then add the mustard seeds, ½ tsp of red chilli powder and then when its pops, add the asafetida, curry leaves and red chillies. Fry for a few seconds but don’t burn it.
- Pour the tempering on top of dal. And squeeze some lemon juice and stir with the seasonings. Garnish with coriander leaves.
I LOVE lentils, this looks delicious!!
Awesome. Masha allah! Such an easy recipe and yummy too! I just added few extra green chillies coz my family loves spice! And I didn’t get jaggery so tried honey. Worked quite well too I must say! Thanks a ton for the recipe 🙂
Thanks for a lovely recipe. Only I found 2tbsp too much salt for my pallet.
Hi, thank you for the fantastic recipe! I made this last night and it is fantastic! Is there a mistake in the quantity of salt called for – it specifies 2 tablespoons (2 tbsp) of salt, for just 1 cup of lentils – sounds like quite a lot of salt. Perhaps it should be 2 tsp? I think half a teaspoon for 1 cup of lentils is ample.
Thank you so much. Surely will check that.
when?
Funny that there was no follow up for over 3 years. I’ve cooked this recipe numerous times and I believe that the salt amounts should be “teaspoons”. I usually make 4 times the recipe but the amounts I use for the version above is 1.5tsp, then I will finish it with more if needed.
I just wanted to say I love authentic recipes and this one sounds really good. I have noticed a lot of these recipes seem to use a pressure cooker for cooking dal (must be a staple item in most Indian homes) unfortunately I do not have one. It would be so nice to have a stove top recipe.
Can I use ordinary green lentils for this recipe (easier to get in my supermarket) or should I seek out green moong dal.
Yes 🙂 You can. It should taste good