Spinach chutney

Spinach chutney - palak chutney - Palakura pachadi - a delicious chutney recipe with lots of spinach leaves, sesame seeds, and Indian spices.

Spinach, also called palak in Hindi, and palakura in Telugu is a highly nutritious leafy vegetable.

Though leafy greens are highly nourishing, not everyone likes them. But try making chutney with these, and I am sure everyone likes it(at least at home!)

This Andhra style palak chutney will be a little tangy, sweet, and slightly spicy. And this makes a good side dish for almost anything.

If you want to make your kids or other family members eat the leafy greens, try my other chutney recipes with green veggies.

Mint chutney

Coriander chutney

Malabar spinach chutney

Amaranth leaves chutney (thotakura pachadi)

Sorrel leaves chutney (Chukkakura pachadi)

Let's begin making palak chutney

• Wash and drain spinach leaves. Finely chop them and keep them aside. Always wash the leafy veggies and then chop them. If you chop first and wash them, water-soluble vitamins will be lost.

• If using the whole tamarind, soak it in little water

• Take a pan and heat it. Dry roast sesame seeds and take them out.
• Next, dry roast cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds also.
• Now add teaspoon of oil and fry the green chili and take it out.
• Add another teaspoon of oil and chopped spinach leaves into this pan.

• Let spinach leaves cook on medium-high flame for 4 to 5 minutes. They will wilt and leave the water.

• I used homegrown tender spinach leaves, so I cooked for 4 minutes. If you are using store-bought ones, you can cook for more time.
• Do not overcook as we lose nutrients from spinach.
• Meanwhile, gather sesame seeds, fried green chili, garlic cloves, jaggery powder, coriander powder, roasted methi and cumin seeds, turmeric powder, and salt.

• Add these ingredients to a mixer jar.

• Make a coarse powder out of these ingredients.

• To this sesame seeds powder mix, add soaked tamarind along with water.

• To this mixer jar, add cooked spinach leaves and make a coarse paste of it.

• You can make it smooth also as per your liking. You can add a little more water to make a smooth paste.

• Now heat the pan again, add oil, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, red chili, hing, and make tadka.

• Take the spinach chutney into the serving bowl. Now add the tadka to the spinach chutney, and it is ready to serve!

This chutney goes well with rice, roti, dosa, idly. You can also use this chutney as a dip for veggies or even as a sandwich spread.

Recipe Notes and Variations

• You can replace sesame seeds with peanuts to make this Palak chutney.
• You can also use both sesame seeds and peanuts like my popular mint chutney recipe.
• This palak chutney is a very versatile chutney that you can serve in many ways. You can have this as a side dish for rice, roti, idly, dosa. Add a little more water and use it as a dip or as a sandwich spread.
• As we are using sesame seeds, you can store this at room temperature for 12 hours. But you can keep this in the refrigerator for two days or so. 
• You can also freeze this, but it will change the consistency. So I prefer freezing cooked spinach and make the chutney as and when required. If you have frozen spinach and roasted sesame seeds handy, you can make this chutney in just 5 minutes.
• Instead of tamarind, you can use lemon juice also for tartness in the dish.

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You might be interested in more chutney recipes on this blog, check them out!