Easy & quick carrot curry recipe with shredded carrots

Make this easy and quick carrot curry recipe with shredded carrots for your lunch or dinner. This carrot curry will be a delicious side dish for rice, quinoa, millet. You can have this as a sandwich and tortilla filling as well.

This is my mother's home-style South Indian curry recipe which is usually called carrot poriyal. And I have added bok choy to make it more nutritious.

Adding bok choy is optional, and sometimes we do make this curry only with carrots at home. Instead of bok choy, you can also use Kale or Collard greens based on the season and availability.

Step by step recipe instructions:

• Wash, peel, and shred the carrots. If using bok choy, finely chop it along with an onion. Shredding carrots is easy, and you check the tutorial here.

• Heat a pan and add oil to it.

• Once the oil becomes hot, add mustard and cumin seeds. Let them splutter.

• Now add finely chopped onion, slitted green chili to the pan. Fry the onions till they turn slightly brown, for 3 to 4 minutes.

• To this onion mixture, add grated carrots and mix them well. Now add coriander powder, turmeric powder, and salt to the carrot mixture.

• Mix it thoroughly and let the carrot wilt for a couple of minutes.

• It's time to add chopped bok choy and stir it.

• Cook the mixture till bok choy gets wilted but still stays crisp. I cooked for 4 minutes on medium heat, but you could adjust the timings based on heat level and the amount of the curry.

• Finally, add desicatted coconut powder and mix it well. Switch off the flame and the shredded carrot curry is ready to serve.

Serving suggestion:

You can serve this simple Indian-style side dish in many ways. Usually, these kinds of South Indian style dry curries are a side dish for rice. But you could eat this with cooked millet or quinoa as well. 

Try adding some cooked beans to this carrot curry, and your protein-rich shredded carrot salad will be ready.

You can use this carrot curry as a sandwich or tortilla filling.

Tips and variations:

• By shredding carrots, cooking time will be significantly less when compared to chopping it. Also, shredding carrots is easy than chopping.
• You could dice the carrots finely using a slicer and make this carrot curry. You would need to cook for a little longer, and it depends on the size of chopped carrots.
• Don't have bok choy? You could use kale to make this shredded carrot stir fry. I sometimes skip it altogether and make plain carrot curry.
• Spring onions will also go well into this curry. Try to sneak as many greens as possible into your daily diet. 
• Usually, South Indian style curry will have coconut powder, and hence we add coconut powder in dry curry like this. You could replace coconut powder with peanut powder or sesame seeds powder, or almonds powder. 
• Sometimes, as a variation, we add a handful of yellow lentils to this carrot curry. Add mung dal at the beginning, and it will be cooked along with the carrot.
• As fresh coconut is abundantly available in South India, traditional carrot poriyal will use it. But you can use dry coconut or fresh coconut based on your convenience.
• If you want to make this carrot with carrot cubes, I recommend using a pressure cooker for cooking carrots. And then, use cooked carrots to make this curry. To pressure cook carrots, add chopped carrot to a bowl, use pot in pot method, and cook for 1 or 2 whistles. Do not add any water to the carrot, and only the steam will cook the carrots properly. I usually use this method for beetroot.

Have you tried this recipe? Provide your feedback by giving a star rating and/or leaving comments. And don't forget to share the recipe with others on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter.

Recipe: