Instant Pot Curry
Published 9/19/2022
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If you’re looking for a quick and healthy dinner to make, you will love this Instant Pot curry recipe made with sweet potatoes, lentils, and kale.
Instant Pot Curry with Sweet Potatoes, Lentils, and Kale
We are huge fans of healthy Instant Pot recipes because they’re fast to make, easy to prepare, and a great way to meal prep for the week.
Get your veg in with this delicious and flavorful Instant Pot Curry. It packs in all the veggies, protein, and fiber all thanks to sweet potatoes, lentils, and kale.
For this recipe you only need less than 30 minutes from start to finish and you’ll have a healthy dinner ready for you and your family.
Featured Ingredients
Spices
- Curry powder: you’ll need a full tablespoon of curry powder for this recipe.
- Ginger powder: we used dried ginger powder, but you can also use freshly grated ginger.
Veggies
- Sweet potato: sweet potato is a complex carb and adds so much flavor and texture. You can also use normal potatoes or butternut squash instead,
- Onion: onion is a great base flavor for curry.
- Kale: kale is a great green to add to Instant Pot curry.
Legumes
- Lentils: dried lentils add both protein and fiber. You can also use dried split peas as well.
Other
- Coconut milk: full-fat coconut milk compliments ginger and curry quite nicely and is the liquid base of this curry.
- Hot sauce: hot sauce is optional, but adds a great amount of heat to every bite.
- Maple syrup: a splash of maple syrup adds just the right amount of sugar to bring out all of the yummy curry flavors.
How to Make Instant Pot Curry
Saute
Add olive oil to your Instant Pot and turn on the saute feature. Next, add in diced onion and spices and saute until fragrant. Turn off saute feature.
Add and Cook
Add water, sweet potato, carrots, ,and lentils and mix.
Then seal your Instant Pot and turn to high pressure. Set timer for 1 minute. Let your Instant Pot build up (this might take a few minutes). Once it starts counting down, you’ll hear it beep after just one minute…it’s almost done! Let it naturally release for 3 minutes before manually turning the valve to quick release.
Add Final Ingredients & Serve
Open your Instant Pot and give it a quick stir. Add in your kale and full-fat coconut milk and stir one more time! Serve on your favorite grain or cauliflower rice!
Storage
Store leftover curry in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3-5 days.
How to Freeze
Let the curry cool completely. Then, transfer it into an airtight container and seal it. Freeze for up to 3 months.
Instant Pot Curry
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 3 cups water
- 2 sweet potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup red lentils or dried split peas
- 1.5 teaspoons fine sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ½ cup full-fat coconut milk
- 1 cup chopped kale, stems removed
- optional: 1/2 tablespoon Frank’s hot sauce
- optional: 1/2 tablespoon maple syrup
Instructions
- Press Sauté and add the olive oil to the Instant Pot. Once the oil is hot but not smoking, add the onion, curry powder, and ginger and stir just until fragrant, about 1 minute. Press Cancel to stop the cooking cycle.
- Add the water and use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape the bottom of the pot, making sure nothing has stuck. Add the sweet potatoes, carrots, lentils, salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Stir well to ensure the lentils are covered in water, then secure the lid and move the steam release valve to Sealing. Select Manual/Pressure Cook to cook on high pressure for 1 minute.
- When the cooking cycle is complete, let the pressure naturally release for 3 minutes, then move the steam release valve to Venting. When the floating valve drops, remove the lid and add the coconut milk and kale. Stir until the kale has wilted, about 2 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed, adding the hot sauce or maple syrup if you want it hotter or sweeter!
- Serve the curry warm over the grain of your choice and garnished with the cilantro. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 1 week.
Tips & Notes
- Red lentils cook much faster than other varieties, so I don’t recommend swapping them for green or brown lentils here. You would have to increase the cooking time, which would overcook the other vegetables.
- Nutrition does not include grain of choice.
Watch It
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Fresh & Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook
This recipe was first seen in the Fresh and Healthy Instant Pot. Megan is the queen of vegan and paleo recipes and her cookbook for sure doesn’t disappoint! All 75 of these recipes are gluten-free and refined-sugar-free, making for 75 easy recipes for light meals to make in your Instant Pot!
We chose to make her sweet potato curry recipe because 1. we are sweet potato obsessed and 2. I never say no to curry! (I mean have you made our coconut curry chicken yet?). I also know that a lot of you have been looking for more vegan Instant Pot recipes to make and this one fits the bill perfectly!
Before we jump into the recipe, check out The Fresh and Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook on Amazon, Target, and Barnes and Noble!
The recipe technically worked, and I will try again but OMG this needs WAY more spice! I will prob add some garam masala, coriander, turmeric, extra curry, etc. It’s a nice easy vegan recipe but the coconut milk is most of the flavor. I will also dry toast the spices separately rather than adding in with the onion and oil…reduce the chance of the dreaded BURN screen on the instant pot!
Thanks for the inspo and great base recipe!
So I made the mistake of not reading through the entire recipe first before making it and as I didn’t have an entire cup of red lentils I dumped a cup of brown lentils in there. It was right after that that I realized it said ONE MINUTE under pressure, there was an audible record scratch in the kitchen and I said “wait what”. I quickly googled “brown lentils instant pot” to see how much they actually need, because I was sure it wasn’t one minute. The answer is 6-8 minutes.
Thankfully I have never been able to cut things in “1 inch pieces”no matter what a recipe says, so I cut my sweet potatoes in larger-ish chunks and called it a day, good thing I did. I thought that they would be able to survive 7 minutes under pressure without completely disintegrating. I even added an entire zucchini in there and that didn’t disintegrate either, although keep in mind I didn’t cook the zucchini at all before closing the pot.
Well I have great news because this came out perfectly. If you only have brown lentils on hand, cut your sweet potatoes in larger chunks and set it for 7 minutes and 3 minutes NR. The lentils kept their shape and had some “bite” not raw bite, but “al dente”.
My non-vegan fiance loved this too and it keeps really well as leftovers!
OMG! I am so glad you had brown lentils and that it worked! We love this recipe so much! Thank you for sharing:)
Something seems wrong with this recipe or else Ham making a mistake.
The Cook Time = 17 minutes. However when I read the instructions, it says
Steps:
1. Sauté olive oil 1 minute
2. Add, water, food, etc. and cook on high pressure for 1 min
3. Add coconut milk and stir for 2 min
Total cooking time is 4 minutes.
I followed the recipe and the food was still raw. I transferred it to a standard saucepan and cooked it for approximately 15 minutes.
Is there something wrong with step 2?
I would like to cook this properly in the Instant Pot.
I havent cooked the recipe yet either, but noticed the same inconsistently as well. I imagine we should go with the instructions as they’re written in the actual instructions. That’s my plan, at least!
Hi Frank!
I am sorry you are having trouble with this recipe! If you covered and let your Instant Pot cook on high for 1 minute, you did step #2 correct.
It seems that maybe your issue was in step #3? You have to let the Instant Pot naturally release for 3 minutes!
Let me know if this makes sense!
Cook this dish today, it was thick and yummy. Will do again
This was really tasty! It needed a little more salt (imo) and cayenne pepper or frank’s red hot (as per the recipe), but we added that to taste afterwards, since I had a 5 year old eating it, too. If I were to make this, again, I would cut the sweet potatoes into MUCH larger pieces, since the 1″ pieces turned to mush. it was still very flavorful, though. I cut the carrots large (as in, 1-2″ long) and they turned out perfect. I recommend this recipe, but cut the potatoes larger.
I made this last night and it was delicious! However it came out completely mushy and didn’t look at all like your photos. I was okay with this but my husband is a big texture person, plus he didn’t like the skin on the sweet potato (whereas I couldn’t even detect it!). I served it over rice but because it was more puree-like, I think it would be fabulous with naan.
BTW as a new mom I’m constantly looking for time-savers and frozen chopped kale was excellent here – just mixed it in unthawed with the coconut milk and it “cooked” within 2 minutes since it was so hot.
I tried this. It was lovely. Added garlic kale and spinas and more curry powder . Yummmmmm!
Just checking… did you use dried lentils or canned? This looks awesome can’t wait to try!
Dried lentils!
Looks yummy! Directions say to add maple syrup, but the ingredients says hot sauce. Is it one or the other? Also, how much maple syrup? Thanks!
I just updated the recipe! It should be either 🙂
Oh my, sweet potato curry with beans and loads of veggies and spices is my all-time favorite dish! Pumpkin curry is a huge winner too–they both tie, but it depends on the variety of pumpkin and sweet potatoes for me! Anyhow, this looks like a terrific recipe from a stellar cookbook. I love how you can customize the ingredients if you’re in the mood for something new!
It was seriously SO GOOD!!! Eating it again today for lunch <3