Mom’s easy to make Masoor Dal recipe is an everyday favourite in most Indian households. Served with fried vegetables, fried eggs, or even fried fish on the side, this healthy dish is gluten free, vegetarian and as tasty as ever.
Most of us Indians eat a variety of dals on an almost daily basis. Okay, we don’t eat it as regularly as other Indians do, but it is a staple food around here. Vegetarians eat masoor dal or moong dal with papad or pickle or some other veggie dish that’s served with rice or rotis. Non-vegetarians eat it with fried fish or eggs or vegetables dishes.
What Ingredients do you need for this red lentil Curry?
To make this red lentil dal recipe, all you need is whole or split red masoor dal aka red lentils, oil, tomatoes, chilies, garlic, chilly powder, garam masala, kokum, salt, and water.
Kokum is a small fruit that’s popularly used for seasoning in our local Maharashtrian or Konkan cuisine. The dried kokum rind imparts a tangy or slightly sour taste to dishes that we love, while also giving it a maroonish-pinkish tinge. If we don’t have kokum on hand, we can also use tamarind, or sometimes just plain old sour limes.
If you don’t find kokum in the Asian section of your local store, you can skip it. But if you add it, the flavor is a lot better than regular masoor dal.
How to cook red lentils
Start by soaking the red lentils in water. You basically rinse the lentils and allow them to soak for about a half-hour. You can use the whole or split lentils for this recipe. We’ve used the whole lentil. If you look closely at this picture below, these red lentils have been skinned but not split. If they had been split they wouldn’t look like tiny macarons. 😉 So anyway, skinned whole red lentils or skinned split red lentils work; as long as they’re skinned!
Slice the tomatoes into wedges and cut the chillies and garlic fine. Soak the kokum petals in half a cup of water and set aside for later.
Heat the oil in a vessel and add the chopped garlic, chillies, and tomatoes. Saute for a few minutes.
Add in the chili powder and garam masala and mix well.
Add the water, red masoor dal, kokum with water, and salt to the vessel. The kokum adds a tangy taste to the dish. If you do not have kokum, use can replace it with tamarind which has the same effect. You’ll find these ingredients in the Asian section of your supermarket.
Allow this to cook on high flame for about 10 mins with an open lid.
And your dal is ready! Serve hot with pav or rotis or rice. For a side, use some pickle or fried fish or fried brinjal vegetable.
What’s perfect about this Red Lentil recipe?
- Its quick and easy to make, just 10 minutes of actual cooking time.
- You can serve it with rice, pav, rotis or chappatis.
- It goes well with a number of Veg or Non-Veg side dishes, but is perfect all on it’s own too!
Cooking Tips or Tricks
- If you have East Indian bottle masala, you can use this instead of the chilli powder and garam masala.
- If you do not have Kokum, use Tamarind instead.
- When you have guests over, you can add 2 tablespoons of fresh cream, ghee or butter on top just before serving. It adds some awesomeness.
FAQ’s about Red Lentils
You can serve red lentil curry with pickles or salads, or just some fried fish or fried vegetables. It’s perfect on it’s own too with some bread, rice or roti.
Yes, you need to soak masoor dal in water for about half-hour before cooking.
Kokum is a tiny fruit that is dark purple in colour and local to Maharashtra and Goa. It adds acidity and sourness to the dish as well as a maroonish-pinkish colour.
This is a mixture of various hot spices ground together to a powder. The most common ingredients are coriander, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and black pepper. Different variations of garam masala also contain chili powder, mace, fennel seeds, cloves, bay leaves, star anise, and other ingredients. You’ll find garam masala in the Asian section of your supermarket.
Other recipes you might like
- Fried Brinjal
- Potato Bhaji or Indian Potato Vegetable Dinner
- Egg Bhurji
- Goat Mutton Trotter’s Curry
- Mustard Chicken
- Ginger Wine Recipe
- Raw Mango Salad
- Yellow Moong Dal Recipe
- Custard Powder Cookies
- Anda Bhurji or Indian Scrambled Egg Recipe
- Semolina Date and Orange cake
- Honeyballs or Snow Ball Dessert
You can print off the list of ingredients and instructions to follow for making this recipe via the recipe card below (for home use only).
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Whole Masoor Dal or Red Lentils Curry
Ingredients
- 250 g Red Lentils Skinned Whole Masoor (Or Skinned Split Masoor)
- 2 Tomatoes
- 2 Green chilies
- 5 Garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp Chilly powder
- 1 tbsp Garam masala
- 6 Kokum petals or 1 Tamarind pod
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 2 tbsp Oil
- 500 ml Water
Instructions
Prep for the Red Lentils or Masoor Dal Curry
- Soak the red lentils in water for 30 minutes. (Skinned split red lentils or skinned whole red lentils will work.)
- Slice the tomatoes into wedges.
- Cut the chillies and garlic fine.
- Soak the kokum petals half a cup of water and set aside.
Cooking the Red Lentil Curry
- Heat the oil in a pot.
- Add the tomato wedges and chopped garlic and chillies to the pot and saute for a few minutes.
- Then add the chilli powder and garam masala and fry for another minutes.
- Lastly add the kokum soaking in the water, dal, salt and water to the vessel and allow to cook on a high flame for 10 minutes.
- If you want to make the dal richer for your guests, add 2 tablespoons of cream, butter or ghee on top before serving.
- Serve with pav, puris, bread, rice or rotis!
Notes
- You can use whole red lentils or split red lentil for this recipe.
- If you do not have Kokum petals, replace this with Tamarind.
- If you have East Indian bottle masala, use this instead of the chilli powder and garam masala.
- The puris recipe is here!
Looks really easy. Saved the recipe!
We enjoyed your yellow dal recipe. Will try this one ssoon. Saving.