Everyday Curry
Curry is our favourite takeaway, but is remarkably easy and affordable to make at home! The strong, sweet flavours of curry are very forgiving, allowing you to add more veg and less meat easily with less chance of people noticing since it changes the taste very little. Follow our simple tweaks and tips to make your curry even better!
Why is Curry so great?
The strong flavours of curry means you can add more veg and less meat over time without impacting on the taste. Making it more likely to be accepted by veg skeptics.
Replacing a takeaway curry with a homemade one (even if it’s just a protein and a jar of curry sauce) is healthier, far cheaper and quicker!
Lots of veg work in a curry. You can adapt your recipe around your family’s favourite veggies, or ones you want to try and introduce or eat more of without changing the flavour and without more effort.
And of course, curry is very affordable! To keep costs to a minimum (and make the recipe healthier at the same time), try curry powder with coconut milk or chopped tomatoes or yogurt rather than a jarred sauce, add some frozen veg, and swap your meat or processed veggie alternative for a tin of chickpeas or lentils.
Use the basic recipe, small tweaks and tips below to take your curry from good to better!
How are your curry skills?
Getting
started
I’m just starting out.
Next
Level
I’m ready to take it to the next level.
Engaging
Kids
How can I get my kids involved and interested?
Getting Started
Replacing a takeaway curry with a homemade one (even if it’s just a protein and a jar of curry sauce) is healthier, far cheaper and quicker!
The strong flavours of curry means you can add more veg and less meat over time without impacting on the taste. Making it more likely to be accepted by veg skeptics.
Here is a simple recipe for a simple curry which you can use as a base and build on over time…
Weeknight Curry
Claire Wright
Ingredients:
Jar of curry sauce
Cubed/sliced meat or fish or veggie alternative
Optional frozen veg (see tips below for how to add this slowly)
Rice/naan/noodles to serve
Method:
- Cook the protein according to instructions (for most meats/fish and veggie proteins, this will just be a case of cook in a little oil in a frying pan until browned and cooked through).
- Stir in the curry sauce (and frozen veg, if using) and heat through for a few mins.
- Serve with naan, cooked rice or noodles.
There is no need to go any further with this recipe until you are confident with it and feel up for the next step.
Feeling ready? Let’s see how you can get your next small victory without battles…
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
NEXT LEVEL
I Want To Improve My Curry
If you are feeling confident with your favourite curry recipe, but you’re wondering if there are some small tweaks you could make for the better, this is for you.
We’ve outlined some simple stages for continually improving on a basic curry recipe to get you from good to great. Find where you feel your current recipe sits and see if the next step is something you could aim for. You don’t have to go any further, but if you choose to, make sure you are feeling confident with this new stage before you try the next one.
And remember, the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! These changes and swaps can take as long as is needed if your family isn’t ready for big changes all in one go. Small simple improvements over time may not even be noticed.
And remember, the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! These changes and swaps can take as long as is needed if your family isn’t ready for big changes all in one go. Small simple improvements over time may not even be noticed.
Better Sauce
Read the labels on jars of sauce or curry paste and make changes as slowly as needed for your family, gently moving them towards lower sugar, salt and fat options and ingredients you recognise.
If and when you feel ready, you could start making your own sauce either by just swapping to a curry paste (check the ingredients and freeze any extras in an ice cube tray and pop in a freezer bag for later use) or curry powder combined with stock, water, chopped tomatoes or coconut milk. Swapping a ready-made curry sauce for tinned chopped tomatoes or coconut milk and some curry powder can often help the budget as well as the salt and sugar content.
If you have a little time to make and store a big batch of homemade sauce for a few meals, why not find a super simple recipe for your favourite curry sauce and double or even triple it, saving some in the fridge or freezer for another time.
Making meals go further
With food budgets being stretched, meat can be expensive. Using veg and pulses can help a meal go further without noticeably altering the taste and texture. This not only saves you money, it also helps you get a little closer to 5-a-day! Go at your pace and work through the stages to build up to 50% meat and 50% pulses/veg over time if you can.
For a curry, try a tin of cooked chickpeas, drained, rinsed and added for the last couple of mins of cooking, or add a tin of cooked lentils or even cannellini or butter beans. Alternatively, adding a cup of red lentils into the sauce near the start and allowing to simmer for 20-30 mins until soft can work well. If you think it will be turned down, try starting with just half a tin and perhaps even blending it into the sauce and just reduce the meat while adding more lentils and/or beans slowly each time you make the meal.
Add veg
Adding veg means adding bulk, vitamins and fibre, so you can fill up hungry bellies while making a favourite meal cheaper, more filling and healthier! For the best chance of success, start small (with a veg you know the family like if possible), add a little more each time, don’t try to hide it, and build up over time.
Aim for 2 handfuls of veg per person in the long-run, but it’s better to go slowly and get there eventually than to rush to the finish line and find no one is ready to get there with you.
- Start with frozen veg – there is less waste, it’s cheaper and easier to add a little more each time. Try cauliflower or broccoli, peas, sweetcorn, broad beans or edamame beans, stir fry mix, mixed veg, chargrilled veg, whole leaf spinach, squash or sweet potato chunks, mushrooms, peppers, or even green beans – loads work here!
- If using fresh veg, make sure it is added at the start and allow time for it to soften in a little oil before adding the protein, and sauce. Try diced or sliced fresh carrots, onions, sliced peppers, mushrooms, etc. Or add cubed squash or sweet potato or cauliflower florets to the sauce until soft, or even leafy greens at the last minute.
- Almost all veg will work in curry – have a go at adding your favourites or ones you are keen to try!
Don’t forget that the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! There’s no rush, and no pressure in not getting to 2 portions per serve.
Batch cooking
Once you are happy with your recipe, why not batch cook and freeze extra to save you future time, effort and money? Curry batches really well, just batch and freeze for up to 3 months and heat through to piping hot while you cook some rice to go with it, or keep in the fridge for a few days.
Not sure if batch cooking is for you? People often think batch cooking means you have to have a big freezer and a slow cooker. But while those things can be helpful, they’re definitely not essential. Find out more about how to start small with batch cooking in our guide.
engaging kids
Play is essential!
Think of children helping in the kitchen as a role play game with plenty of fun for maximum effect. One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods!
Cooking with kids
One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods! They don’t have to be involved in the whole process especially when they are very young (let’s keep the mess to a minimum!), just give them 1-2 smaller jobs they can own with some supervision.
If you are making a curry, why not get younger kids stirring in veg and sauce, helping to serve it into bowl, filling a mug with rice and then twice with water to serve, and helping pick out which veg to add.
Older kids might be ready to learn how to chop some fresh veg to add at the start of the meal, stir everything together in the pan, and taking a bit more charge of preparing and cooking the rice!
See if they can tick off our Kitchen Ninja skills over time as you all get used to the recipe.
Arts & crafts
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging veg-based arts & crafts can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory.
Use these arts & crafts as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. While you make your curry, why not set them up with our broccoli veg crown?
Games & puzzles
Like arts & crafts, games & puzzles are a very safe way to get veggies to become more familiar and takes any pressure off eating or engaging their senses around veg for now.
A great place to start with curry might be our Broccoli Veg Surveillance game!
Sensory
Sensory engagement with veg is possibly the best way to get children to slowly become more familiar with a veg. Take away the pressure to taste for now (and remember that ‘tasting’ could be expanded to include sniffing, licking and smelling) and instead encourage exploring a veg with a sense of smell, hearing, touch or sight.
Why not start with a broccoli floret and get them to describe what they see – maybe they are classic miniature trees, or an ogre’s nose, or even a Hulk snack! See if they want to chuck some into the curry after having engaged with them.
Serving
If your kids aren’t ready to be in the kitchen helping with part of the prep or cooking process, why not give them a job around the serving that could help them feel involved in the meal?
A crafty kid may like to design a beautiful menu, one who likes to help can lay the table. One may like to help you plate up the food, another may love to give the meal a theme! If you can (and we know it’s not always possible), try to eat with the kids, as they are much more likely to eat healthier food if they see it being eaten (and enjoyed!) by their families.
Why not ask a child with a big imagination to come up with a silly story behind the curry? Perhaps the squash and chickpeas you chose to put in are in the midst of a centuries-long battle and they both need the family’s help to eat the other! Let them play with the veg as they create the story, perhaps adding it into the meal themselves. Make sure to praise them for any involvement, it may encourage them to eat more of the meal if they feel it is at least in part, theirs!
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