10 Easy Indian Recipes For Beginners - Tried and Tested - Spiceitupp % (2024)

Many people find cooking Indian food intimidating and complicated.

But everyday Indian cooking does not involve complex cooking methods or ingredients. They are simple Indian recipes that can be cooked in under an hour or even 30 minutes.

An average Indian household in India cook 3 meals a day from scratch that is breakfast, lunch, and dinner (I am not counting myself in this average). The key is to cook easy Indian meals with basic beginner spices and ingredients.

Cooking complex lengthydishes is not always practical. Theremay be days especially a Sunday, special occasions or holidays that call for a more indulgent meal.

However such elaborate dishes are not expected on a day to day basis as everyday Indian food is mostly kept light and simple.

In this post I will share tips on how to select easy Indian recipes to make quick Indian dinner from the thousands of Indian recipes you search and list some easy Indian cooking recipes for beginners that have been tried and tested at home.

Tips On How To Choose Easy Indian Recipes

Given the varied and confusing choiceswhich are thrown at you when you google the term ‘Easy Indian recipes’ can be quite daunting. But don’t be scared to take the plunge

This post shares a beginners guide on cooking Indian food at home.

There are many easy to cook Indian recipes that you can make if you follow these simple Indian food recipes selection tips and pick dishes that can be made without much effort at home.

1. Select simple ingredients – Choose recipes that have few simple ingredients that you are familiar with.
2. Limit the spices – Stick to recipes that lists these 5 essential Indian spices you need to start cooking Indian food at home or spices that you may already have at home.
3. Choose everyday Indian dishes – If you know how to cook lentils, then choose an easy Indian recipe of lentils. It is one of the simplest everyday Indian dishes to make.
4. Understand the cooking process – Select recipes that have step wise cooking image or videos explaining the dish. This will indicate the typical Indian cooking process involved and give you a rough idea of how you can make it at home.
5. Prep before hand – If you are a complete beginner to cooking Indian food or cooking it for the first time then it would help to prep that is chop, measure out ingredients before you start so that you have an idea of the work and cooking steps involved.

10 Easy Indian Recipes for Beginners

Below is a list of 10 easy Indian dinner recipes I have selected for you from various Indian recipe sites to make your search a bit easier. They are a mix of blogs, including mine, websites, and youtube videos.

1.Spinach Mushroom Pulao Rice

A simple easy to prepare wholesome healthy one-dish meal delicately spiced with only 1 spice. This Indian rice recipe will transform your leftover rice into something so healthy and delicious that you will be impressed yourself.

2. Egg Bhurji – Indian style scrambled Eggs

A spicy Indian version of scrambled eggs popular in most Indian household as a quick main meal with any bread.

Cooking Note: You can substitute the Pav Bhaji Masala in the recipe ingredient with curry powder.

3. Alu Matar – Potatoesand peascurry

Lightlyspiced potato and peas in a thin tomato gravy. A favorite simple Indian dinner idea in most Indian households is an easy Indian dish to make as a main dish which goes well with rice or roti.

Cooking Note: This particular recipe uses a pressure cooker but you can use a normal pan, however, increase cooking time by 15 minutes more until the potatoes and peas get cooked.

4. Gajar Bean ki Sabji (Spicy Beans and carrots)

Add a hint of spice and turn boring vegetables into a colourfulflavorful palette.

An extremely easy Indian side dish that can also be eaten as main with any Indian bread or plain buttered rice.

5. Masoor Daal

This everyday lentils dish is a regular in most Indian household.

Dal and chawal (boiled rice and lentils) is a favourite combination of many. Simple, wholesome and delicious.

Cooking Note: The recipe includes Asafoetida spice. You can omit the spice or use a substitute for Asafoetida.

6. Easy Indian Salmon Curry

Make it fiery hot or just subtle, this is an easy Indian fish curry make with just vindaloo spice blend salmon fish and coconut milk. It is a full of flavour and given an healthy twist by adding spinach. You can choose to leave the spinach out and make this delicious salmon curry.

Cooking Note: You can substitute vindaloo spice with any readily available pre-blended Indian spice mixes.

6. Butter Chicken

Probably the most famous and popular of all Indian dishes, within and outside India.

Succulent pieces of chicken in a mild creamy tomato gravy. A must try and better still pretty easy to make.

7. Lamb Roganjosh

Slow cooked lamb in in a spicy onion tomato sauce with freshly grounded spices.

This easy lamb dish is made with freshly blended spices but you can always use ground spices and add them to the dish instead.

8. Pumpkin curry with coconut milk

A south Indian style easy tangy-sweet pumpkin curry made with coconut milk.

Using the 5 essential Indian spices, this dish comes together in less than 30 minutes.

Cooking Note:Although the recipe uses pumpkin, you can add or substitute any vegetables of your choice to this dish.

9. Alu Gobhi

Another everyday easy Indian recipe from Northern India.

There are many versions of this dish but I like this one as frying the potatoes and cauliflower a little beforehand gives this dish a yummy flavour.

You, of course, have the choice to skip the frying part if you wish.

10. Fish Korma

This recipe ups the game a bit, yet easy to cook.

Fish fillets in a creamy cashew gravy. Mild and delicately spiced this is one of my easy Indian recipes for the whole family.

Cooking Note: Substitute cashew paste with a paste made of almond powder. It tastes just as good.

Start Cooking Your Own Indian Meal

Unlike the list of the many ‘ easy Indian dishes’ you see on the internet, the above recipes are truly for complete beginners.

They use minimal spices and ingredients which can be bought from any local store. In case you have problems sourcing specific spices such as asafoetida or curry leaves then you can skip using them. or refer to the link below for suitable spice substitute.

I would really recommend you to try and cook a few dishes at home and enjoy the subtle homemade Indian flavours.

Are there any recipes that you have made that I can include in the list?

Please let me know as this will help others make some simple and easy Indian curry recipes.

Online Indian Cooking Classes

If you are still unsure and would like someone to show you how to make Indian food in the comfort of your home, explain the cooking process, simply the spices and prepare a home cooked Indian meal then join a fully interactive online Indian cooking class.

Watch this video to get a feel of how an online class works.

The classes are more than just following a recipe.

They guide you through a stepwise process and share the many cooking tips you can only learn from an expert cook.

Check the latest online classes on offer here.