I’ve only been back to our office a handful of times since we were sent home abruptly one afternoon in March 2020. Returning and seeing my desk the way I left it was like opening a time capsule. There was a stack of cookbooks I had clearly meant to bring home, mostly, as I recall, to try to inject some verve into my Instant Pot dinner rotation.
Well more than a year after I’d set it aside and nearly three years after it was originally published, I finally started digging through one of those books: “The Essential Indian Instant Pot Cookbook,” by Archana Mundhe.
Indian is my favorite cuisine, and Instant Pot cooking one of my favorite ways to make my hectic life easier, but I’d only combined the two to moderate success. None of the Indian dishes I’d made in the Instant Pot really wowed me until I started making Mundhe’s. After a few roaring successes, vegetable korma and pao bhaji among them, I decided it was time to tackle my white whale.
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Chana masala “is a North Indian dish that is now popular all over India,” Mundhe tells me. It’s a chickpea curry with “a creamy tomato-based gravy,” she says. You’ll find some variations among families, one of them being the addition of potatoes.
For years, I’ve been looking for a homemade chana masala to knock my socks off, but none possessed the same depth of flavor that I enjoyed in restaurant versions.
Then I tried Mundhe’s recipe, which she says was inspired by her mother’s. I mashed up the stovetop chana masala posted on her excellent blog, Ministry of Curry, and a similar chole (another chickpea curry) recipe from her book so I could keep everything in the Instant Pot. When I took a bite, I was so happy I could have cried.
The dish boasted soft, creamy chickpeas in a thick, rust-colored sauce, dreamily spiced (but not spicy). It’s warming and oh-so-satisfying, especially when served with naan or paratha for dipping and scooping. Mundhe’s recipe ties or beats anything I’ve had in a restaurant, and I attribute its success to a few things. First, cooking the dried chickpeas in the Instant Pot in a limited amount of water and then keeping the cooking liquid retains all the savory bean flavor for the finished dish. The inclusion of black tea in the cooking water was also a game-changer, adding more depth and dark color to the sauce.
But what really sealed the deal was the homemade chana masala spice blend, which Mundhe agrees “elevates the flavors of this dish. Premade spice blends often lose their potency in a few weeks and you may need to add a lot more of it to get the same flavors.” I highly recommend tracking down the ingredients to make it yourself. Most of them, save for the amchur (dried mango) powder, will be at well-stocked grocery stores. If you can’t find amchur, a squeeze of lemon juice at the end of cooking is a fine swap. The blend makes enough for many batches of the curry and will hold in your pantry for at least a few months, as will the spices for the next time you need to whip it up.
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Once you make the spice blend, which itself doesn’t take too long, there’s very little active time (but do take a few hours to soak the chickpeas first for the most consistent results). “I love that Instant Pot allows me to do most of my cooking hands-off,” Mundhe says.
Recipe notes: The dried chickpeas must be soaked for 4 to 10 hours.
Leftovers can be refrigerated for up to 4 days. Reheat in the microwave or on the stovetop. The spice blend can be stored in an airtight container in a cool, dark spot for several months. You’ll have enough spice blend for 8 batches of the curry.
If you don’t want to make it, chana masala spice blends, such as MDH, Badshah and Rani brands, can be found online and at Indian and some international markets.
To make this recipe on the stovetop, see the Stovetop variation at the end of the recipe steps below.
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