Instant Pot Spicy Indian Chickpeas with Kale

Confession guys, I resisted the Instant Pot FOR YEARS. I had two Crock Pots, barely used, and a smattering of other small kitchen appliances of various levels necessity. Need? Want? You decide if you like standing around stirring the pot for a few hours, or would you rather give a few ingredients a quick sauté, AND THEN WALK AWAY, dinner ready in less than an hour?

While I use my Instant Pot for a variety of bean dishes, this is consistently in the weekly rotation since a friend passed on this recipe from Carve Your Craving. I made a few tweaks to make this a little more Weight Watcher friendly, and fiddled with the spices a bit. My FAVORITE outcome after including this in our meal plan, is the dramatic reduction in our family visits to Tarka Indian Kitchen. My smart point budget thanks me, and yours will too.

Pair this dish with this recipe for incredibly easy naan, and you'll never order takeout again.

Yield:

4 servings/2 smart points per serving (without the naan, <sorry>)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of salt
1 heaping cup of dried chickpeas, rinsed and picked over
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 small sweet onions, chopped fine
1 bay leaf
3-5 slices jalapeño, depending on how much heat you like
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
14.5 ounce can crushed tomatoes (I like Muir Glen Fire Roasted)
3/4 can water
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 heaping tablespoon garam masala (I like Southern Style Spices blend)
4-6 cups of kale, de-stemmed and torn into bite-sized pieces
fresh mint and greek yogurt to serve


Directions:

1. Soak chickpeas in 30 ounces of water and 2 tablespoons of salt, over night or at least eight hours. If you don't have time for this sort of nonsense, just increase your cook time to 40 minutes, and dial back the salt to 2 teaspoons.

2. Drain chickpeas, and set aside.

3. Turn Instant Pot to sauté mode. When hot, add oil, onions, jalapeño and bay leaf. Sauté for 3-4 minutes until onions are translucent, but not brown.

4. Add in the ginger and garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

5. Add all the spices and cook until fragrant, 10-30 seconds.

6. Add tomatoes, water and chickpeas, scraping up any spices that may be stuck to the bottom of pot.

7. Hit cancel on instant pot.

8. Seal lid on pot and make sure steam release is set to "sealing".

9. Cook 15 minutes on high pressure. If this is your first InstantPot voyage, it takes awhile for the pressure to build, around 15-20 minutes. Then it will beep, and count down the time, the 15 minutes you set it for.

10. Allow InstantPot to sit sealed for 15 minutes or longer after the 15 minute cook has finished.

11. Release lid, and hit cancel.

12. Hit sauté. Fish out your bay leaf and discard. Add kale and sauté until wilted, but still toothy, 2-4 minutes.

13. Serve with a dollop of fat free greek yogurt and a sprinkle of fresh mint leaves. And that naan, if you want to live your best dinner.

Also, this freezes SO GREAT, kale and all. And instead of the greek yogurt, you could totally stir in some light coconut milk to keep it vegan. And maybe Whole 30? You can tell me, as I don't really know about that last part, because I couldn't. Not ever.