Indian chicken curry with coconut milk, spinach and turmeric

Easy to make Indian style curry

This recipe with chicken thighs and spinach is an easy to make basic recipe for an Indian style curry. Indian cooking is full of flavour and very versatile. The use of coconut milk is authentic, so for a dairyfree recipe you don’t need to compromise. It will only take about 20 minutes to make this dish. So it’s perfect for a busy weekday. Nice to combine with rice. Or, if you don’t eat rice, with fried sweet potato or cauliflower rice.

Chicken

I use chicken thighs instead of breast filets because they contain more fat and taste far more juicy. Preferable buy ‘real’ organic chicken that has been living outside most of her days. And has been allowed to scrape some of her food by herself. Better for the chicken and better for you. The meat contains more vitamins and minerals and has a better omega 3 to 6 ratio.

Fresh or dried herbs

In Indian dishes most of those spices can be used dried and ground instead of fresh. Most of them can be found online or at Asian stores and markets. But if you can get your hands on fresh ginger and turmeric I would always choose those. In my country fresh ginger is widely available but turmeric a little less.

But beware! If you decide to grate and grind turmeric yourself… Be sure to use gloves or your fingers will be yellow for days! Otherwise you can just use powder. Always try to combine turmeric with a dash of freshly ground black pepper. That will enhance some of the healthy qualities of the turmeric. Off course unless you’re still in the elimination phase of AIP. Since black pepper is a seed.

Paleo and nightshade

A lot of Indian recipes use nightshade spices. I won’t start a battle here, but in a strict paleo diet you don’t eat nightshade at all. For myself I am a little less strict though. I do eat red tomatoes, bell peppers and chili peppers. In this recipe I use chili flakes but you won’t harm the dish by just leaving them out. Of course you can also leave hem out if you just don’t like spicy food.

AIP and seeds

The Indian cuisine also uses a lot of spices made from seeds (cumin, coriander, fenugreek seeds, black pepper). But luckily also roots are used (tumeric, ginger, galangal), as well as flowers and leaves (fenugreek leaves, mace) and even bark (cinnamon). So you have a lot of options to make this recipe AIP proof.