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Saturday Night Chicken & Bean Curry

Built entirely from what was in the cupboard on a wet Saturday. This is the one with the onion-garlic jam base, a custom cumin-and-fennel blend, and the blended-chickpea trick that makes it taste like it's been simmering all day.

serves 3 45 mins dinner spicy
Saturday Night Chicken & Bean Curry

why it works

Blending half the chickpeas into the sauce replaces the double cream, butter or coconut milk a restaurant would use — you get the same velvety body from pure soluble fibre and zero saturated fat. Breaking the cell walls also makes that fibre significantly easier to digest.

Ingredients

  • chicken breasts or thighs, chopped
  • 1 tin chickpeas or cannellini beans, rinsed hard in cold water
  • 2 onions, 3–4 garlic cloves, 1 fresh chilli
  • fresh ginger, if you have it
  • 1–2 bell peppers, sliced
  • 1 tin chopped tomatoes
  • tomato purée
  • a mountain of spinach
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1.5 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed
  • 1.5 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1–2 tsp chilli powder or cayenne
  • optional: 2 tbsp 0% Greek yogurt

Method

  1. Grate or finely mince the onions, garlic and chilli into a paste and fry on medium-low with a pinch of salt for a full 10–12 minutes until they lose all structure and look like thick, deep golden jam. This is the masala base, and it's where the caramelised sweetness that balances the chilli comes from.

  2. Tomato purée and the spice blend straight into the onion jam, stirring continuously for 60 seconds until the kitchen smells incredible.

  3. Splash in a little plum sake or a squeeze of lemon right after toasting the spices. The acid deglazes the pan and unlocks the fat-soluble flavours sitting in the cumin and fennel.

  4. Pour in the tinned tomatoes, scraping up everything stuck to the bottom, and bring to a gentle simmer.

  5. Blend half the tin of chickpeas with a few tablespoons of the tomatoes until it looks like loose hummus, then stir that paste into the simmering sauce. Keep the other half whole for texture — blend the lot and you'll have hot spicy hummus.

  6. Chicken, sliced peppers and the remaining whole beans in. Heat low, lid on, 20–25 minutes. The slow simmer breaks the plant fibres down properly.

  7. Two minutes before serving, heat off, spinach dumped on top and stirred until it wilts. If you want it silkier, wait a minute then stir in the Greek yogurt — never while it's still boiling.

Serve it with

remix

  • No fenugreek is fine. It adds a bitter, maple-ish note but the curry doesn't need it
  • Cannellini beans instead of chickpeas go creamier; chickpeas hold their texture better
  • Two tablespoons of 0% Greek yogurt stirred in with the heat completely off
  • A splash of plum sake in place of the lemon at step 3 for a fruity, deglazing lift
  • Serve with toasted sourdough drizzled in olive oil, used like naan