Instant Pot Lentil Curry
To make Instant Pot Lentil Curry, cook the aromatics, stir in the sauce components, and let everything simmer until the flavors settle into each other. This version keeps the curry rich and balanced without dragging the process out all night.
Red lentils are wonderfully cooperative. They do not need soaking, they cook quickly, and under pressure they soften into the kind of thick, spoonable curry that tastes as if it required much more supervision than it did. Onion, garlic, and ginger are sautéed first, then curry powder, cumin, turmeric, and optional cayenne get a brief 30 seconds in the hot oil to wake up before the liquid goes in.
The lentils pressure cook with diced tomatoes and vegetable broth for eight minutes, followed by a 10-minute natural release. Coconut milk waits until after pressure cooking, where it can add richness without spending the whole cycle being bullied by high heat. Fresh spinach wilts into the finished curry, and lemon juice goes in last because acid is most useful when you can still taste what it is doing.
Serve it over basmati rice with cilantro and you get a dinner that is earthy, warm, creamy, gently sweet from coconut, and bright enough at the finish to avoid becoming a bowl of beige comfort. It also happens to be plant-based, though the lentils seem perfectly happy not to make a speech about it.
