Easy Palak Aloo – Instant Pot Indian Spinach Potato
Easy Palak Aloo – Instant Pot Indian Spinach Potato is a delicious Indian – style dry dish that is super easy to make and is flavored with ground coriander, ground turmeric and ginger garlic paste.
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 medium potato, yukon gold, 1.3 pounds ( 1 and 1/4 cups chopped)
- 1 pound pound baby spinach (454 grams)
- 4 tbsp oil of choice
- 2 whole dried red chili peppers
- 1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
- 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 and 1/4 tbsp ground coriander (dhaniya powder)
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric (haldi)
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 serrano peppers, small (hari mirch), 1 tbsp chopped (optional)
- 1/4 tsp sugar
Instructions
Prep
- Firstly, rinse the baby spinach well in cold water. There is no need to chop it. We will blend it later. Additionally, you can use regular spinach instead of baby spinach. If you don’t have an immersion blender then chop the spinach finely, while using regular or baby spinach.
- Rinse, and peel the potato. Chop it into small 3/4 inch cubes. No larger than bite size or else they won't cook well.
- Rinse and finely chop the serrano peppers.
Cook
- Select sauté on the Instant Pot. Add in oil to the pot. Further, add in dried red chili peppers and cumin seeds.
- Next in about 30 seconds add in ginger garlic paste and stir.
- Add in baby spinach and stir well. Furthermore add salt and stir well.
- Let the spinach sauté for about 3 minutes until is shrivels and shrinks in size. Keep stirring intermittently to prevent the spinach from sticking to the pot.
- Then add in ground coriander, ground turmeric and stir well. Remove the red dried chili peppers. We will remove these to prevent them from getting crushed while blending.
- Next add water and using an immersion blender coarsely blend the spinach for a few seconds. Also, don’t blend it super fine. It needs to have some texture. If you don’t have an immersion blender you can use a potato masher or the back of a ladle.
- Press cancel. This step will prevent the water from getting evaporated. Add in the serrano peppers, dried red chili peppers, potatoes, and sugar. Stir well and make sure the potatoes and mixed well with the spinach and spices.
- Secure the lid on the pot and select manual/high pressure for 3 minutes. When done quick release the pressure.
- Transfer to a serving bowl and serve with naan or roti (Indian flat bread).
Notes
- On a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of spice levels I would place this dish at 3.5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. You can reduce or eliminate the serrano peppers as per your spice tolerance.
- I have used fresh baby spinach. You can use regular spinach too. However, using baby spinach eliminates the step of chopping the spinach leaves. I have just thrown in spinach in the IP and blended it later. If you are using regular spinach, I recommend chopping the leaves.
- If you don't have an immersion blender then please chop baby leaves prior to cooking as well. You can then use a potato masher or spoon to crush them.