- Hi, I'm Kanchan, I'm the founder
and cookbook author of Spice Spice, Baby.
I have a PhD in molecular biology and I love combining
science, health and flavor to make delicious food.
Today I'm going to show you how to make
12 Indian vegan meals for just $18
and share some tips and tricks along the way.
For breakfast I made overnight oats two ways.
First, I have my plant-based milk
to which I add chia seeds and rolled oats.
Chia seeds are a fantastic source of plant based omega-3's,
really beneficial for your gut microbiome
and your gut lining.
To this batch I'm adding cinnamon and cardamom.
Cinnamon is fantastic for balancing your blood sugar
and cardamom is great for digestion.
And I am, however, adding maple syrup to this
to make it extra delicious.
To this batch of cinnamon, cardamom,
rolled oats, chia pudding I'm adding berries.
As you know, berries contain powerful plant-based
antioxidants and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals.
So I love adding them whenever I can.
For my second batch of overnight oat chia seed pudding,
I am using golden milk.
I'm adding turmeric to my plant based milk and heating it up
a little bit because it turns out that turmeric's bioactive
compounds like curcumin are activated
by heat and a fat source.
To this golden milk I'm adding my chia seeds
and overnight oats and a dash of maple, again.
I am topping this batch with chopped kiwi
and mango for a tropical flair.
Did you know that kiwi can help boost
your body's DNA repair capacity?
That is so cool.
Our bodies are constantly exposed to oxidative stress
and eating kiwis on the regular can really help
your body withstand this kind of stress.
For lunch I made aloo tikkis and lentil salad.
First, I'm making a vegan yogurt sauce
by combining plant-based yogurt, salt,
a little olive oil, a host of spices,
and just whisking that up.
Then I'm going to make a second sauce for variety,
which is my cilantro mint chutney.
Here I have cilantro, mint, shallots, ginger, garlic,
fresh lime juice, a little bit of salt and sugar
for balance and some cumin, a splash of water.
And I'm just blitzing that until smooth.
Now we're going to make a simple lentil salad
with cooked lentils, to which I am adding
some chopped cucumber and lots of vibrant carrots,
lots of fresh lime juice, cilantro, salt,
and a very special chaat masala.
This is so easy and comes together in seconds and has all
the flavor not to mention tons of
plant-based fiber and phytonutrients.
Now we're going to make our aloo tikki's.
This was something my grandmother made for me as a kid,
and I just loved it so much.
And I'm surprised how easy it is to make
because it's so delicious.
I cook some potatoes to which I add cilantro,
spices like turmeric and cumin, lime juice.
And we're going to use some sandwich bread.
You can also use bread crumbs,
and then you're just going to mold this into patties.
You can freeze these for about minutes to make them stay
together even better while cooking.
Then we're just going to pan saute these for about
three to five minutes on each side until golden brown.
Now it's time to plate our aloo tikkis.
I'm going to plate them with some of that
lentil salad on the side which is going to add
a lot of vibrant zesty notes.
And then to add variety, we're going to plate
half the aloo tikkis with the cilantro mint chutney
and the other half with the yogurt sauce.
We're topping everything with a little
cayenne pepper for heat.
If you don't like cayenne, you can use sumac.
You can enjoy these aloo tikki's cold
or warm them up in the microwave.
When you eat cooked and cooled potatoes
like these aloo tikki's, you actually enjoy
the benefits of something called resistant starch
which are great for managing inflammation,
boosting your mood and enhancing overall health.
For dinner I made saag paneer minus the dairy
and sumac dusted chana masala.
Make sure you place the tofu on a cutting board and place a
kitchen towel over it with a heavy skillet
to drain the excess water.
This is going to help it tastes more like paneer.
To the chopped tofu I am adding salt and cumin
which adds some umami notes and helps it
taste more like paneer.
We're going to pan saute this for three to five minutes
on each side until golden brown
to really mimic that form texture of homemade paneer.
Next we're going to make our sauce for our saag.
We're adding oil to which we're adding cumin seeds.
As soon as these begin to sizzle, we're adding
our onion, ginger, garlic paste.
A great time-saving hack is to make double the amount
of onion, ginger, garlic paste,
and just divide it up for your different dishes.
To this paste I'm adding my spices
and roasting them for about a minute until aromatic.
And then we're adding our tomatoes and cooking this down for
about five minutes so that it develops
a deeper flavor and aroma.
First, we're going to cook our spinach
in a little bit of water and puree it.
Now we can add our cooked, pureed spinach
to our onion, ginger, garlic, spice, tomato mixture.
To which we're going to add our pan sauteed extra firm tofu
and let it all simmer together in a beautiful,
delicious amalgam of flavors.
When plating our tofu, I'm going to plate half
with naan and half with Israeli couscous.
I think modifying the grain that you serve your dish with
is a great way to add variety, flavor
and nutrient diversity to your meals.
To make our sumac dusted chana masala
we start in much the same way with oil and cumin seeds.
To that we add the remainder of that onion,
ginger, garlic paste and saute until golden brown.
Then we're going to add our spices
and the tomato paste once again.
So very similar to our saag paneer base.
Now we're going in with cooked, canned, drained chickpeas.
We're adding a bay leaf for extra flavor.
Cooking everything down and adding frozen spinach
for more nutrition, those greens, all that fiber,
the vitamins, minerals, you know the drill.
Greens every day, all day in my books.
We're going to finish this with a dusting
of sumac to add lemony tang.
Sumac is a great source of antioxidants
and anti-inflammatory compounds.
Every time you see the color purple or blue in nature
you're enjoying the benefits
of something called anthocyanins,
which are great anti-inflammatory compounds.
I hope you learned something new today
and I hope you'll try these recipes.
I also hope I was able to show you that making nourishing
plant-based food doesn't have to be lackluster,
dull or uninspiring.
It can be ultra delicious and super budget-friendly.
Let me know what you'd like me to make next.
And thank you so much for watching.
(soft Indian music)