Instant pot Rajma masala | Rajma chawal recipe
Rajma masala is a Vegan and gluten free North Indian-style curry made with kidney beans. It is a simple, healthy, quick, and delicious dish and is almost always served with rice or roti and yogurt.
Ingredients
- 1 cup dry kidney beans Rajma
- 2 cups water
- 2 teaspoons oil + 2 teaspoons ghee
- 1 big onion chopped into small pieces
- 2 teaspoons ginger garlic paste
- 2 to matoes pureed
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- Cilantro for garnish
Whole spices
- 1- inch cinnamon stick
- 1 black cardamom
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
Ground Spices
- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon red chilli powder
- ½ teaspoon garam masala powder
- 1 teaspoon kasuri methi crushed between palms before adding
Instructions
Preparation
- Rinse and Soak 1 cup of Kidney beans for 6 to 8 hours or overnight. Remove the soaking water from the beans and rinse the beans again 2 or 3 times and set them aside.
- Chop 1 big onion into small pieces and puree two tomatoes.
How to make Rajma Instant pot recipe
- Turn on the Instant pot in saute mode on medium heat and add oil and ghee ( you can choose to add all oil or all ghee too ).
- Once the oil is hot, add the whole spices and turmeric powder and saute for few seconds until you get a nice aroma.
- Then add chopped onion with a little salt (to help onions cook faster) and saute them for 3 to 4 minutes until they start turning golden brown.
- Add ginger-garlic paste, coriander powder, and red chili powder and mix well. Deglaze the pot by adding a couple of tablespoons of water if required and scrape the bottom to make sure nothing is sticking.
- Now add tomato puree, a little more salt for the tomatoes, sugar, and cook covered with a stainless steel or glass lid for around 3 minutes.
- Now add the soaked and rinsed kidney beans, water, salt to taste and mix really well. Scrape the bottom to make sure nothing is sticking.
- Turn off the saute mode, close the Instant pot lid with the vent in SEAL position and turn on Bean/Chilli mode for 35 minutes.
- Once the Instant pot turns off, let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes and then move the vent from SEAL to VENT position to release the rest of the pressure.
- Once the pressure pin drops after the pressure is released, open the lid and turn on the Instant pot again on saute mode again to reduce it to the right consistency.
- If you prefer, crush some of the beans with the back of the spatula to make the curry thicker or you can take a ⅓ or ½ cup of beans in a blender to puree and add the puree back into the curry.
- Also, add Kasuri Methi by crushing the dry leaves between your palms and garam masala powder and mix well.
- Garnish with cilantro and serve with plain rice or jeera rice or any kind of Indian flatbread like roti, naan, phulka, etc.
How to make Rajma masala in a pressure cooker
- After soaking and rinsing, pressure cook the soaked beans in a pressure cooker for 4 to 6 whistles on medium heat. Rajma should be very soft but holding its shape when cooked. Now follow the same recipe in a stovetop pan, but after adding cooked rajma along with its water to the onion tomato masala, cook for 5 to 10 mins until everything comes together. No need for pressure cooking again
Notes
- If you are using already cooked kidney beans or canned kidney beans in this recipe, then instead of 40 mins on high pressure, cook only for 6 mins on high pressure in manual/pressure cook mode.
- To serve it as Rajma chawal, You can use the pot in pot method to cook rice along with Rajma in an Instant pot. If you prefer, you can also add some cumin seeds, a few drops of oil, and a little salt to your rice to flavor it.
- If you are coking soaked dry beans, then cook brown rice in the pot in the pot method using a tall trivet in the Instant Pot.
- If you are using previously cooked beans or canned kidney beans then you can cook white rice in the pot in pot method on a tall trivet in an Instant pot.
- Check out the FAQ section above the recipe card for more information.