Warm, richly spiced, and built for a satisfying meal, Tomato Curry Recipe is a vegan, vegetarian Goan, Indian main course made with simple everyday ingredients in about 50 minutes. The recipe lays out the ingredients and each cooking step clearly, so you can adjust seasoning, texture, and serving size for your own kitchen.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 20 minutes
  • Cook time: 30 minutes
  • Total time: 50 minutes
  • Yield: 4
  • Category: Main Course
  • Cuisine: Goan, Indian

Ingredients

  • ½ cup chopped tomatoes (- tightly packed)
  • ⅔ cup grated fresh coconut (- tightly packed, or ½ cup tightly packed chopped fresh coconut)
  • 2 to 3 garlic cloves (- small to medium-sized)
  • 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
  • 1.5 tablespoons chopped onions (or shallots)
  • 4 to 5 kashmiri dry red chilies (- broken and seeds removed if you prefer)
  • 5 whole black pepper (- optional)
  • ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
  • 3 tablespoons water (for grinding the masala paste)
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 teaspoon mustard seeds (- black)
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 1 tablespoon chopped onions
  • 6 to 7 curry leaves
  • 2 dry red chilies (- stalks removed)
  • 1 pinch asafoetida ((hing), optional)
  • ½ to ⅓ cup chopped tomatoes (- for sautéing)
  • 3 cups water (or as required)
  • salt (as required)
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves (for garnish, optional)

Method

Making Tomato-Spices Paste

  1. Rinse and chop the onions, garlic and tomatoes.
  2. Break the dry red chilies and deseed them if you prefer.
  3. Grate the coconut and keep aside. You can also chop the coconut into small pieces.
  4. Take all the ingredients to be ground in a wet grinder jar or a sturdy blender - chopped tomatoes, broken red chilies, garlic, coconut, coriander seeds, chopped onion, whole black pepper and turmeric powder.
  5. Add 3 tablespoons of water and grind to a smooth fine paste. There should be no small chunks or pieces of coconut in the masala paste. Keep the ground paste aside.

Making Tomato Curry

  1. Heat oil in a pan or pot. Add mustard seeds and crackle them.
  2. Then add cumin seeds. Fry till they splutter. Add onions and sauté stirring often till translucent
  3. Then add curry leaves, dry red chilies and asafoetida(hing).
  4. Stir and then add tomatoes. Sauté them for 3 minutes.
  5. Add the ground masala paste and sauté for 1 to 2 mins, stirring often.
  6. Next add 3 cups water. Season with salt as needed.
  7. Bring to a complete boil first without a lid. Then simmer the curry on a low heat, again without a lid. Stir the curry at intervals.
  8. Simmer till you see oil floating on top of the curry. About 12 to 15 minutes on a low heat after the first boil.
  9. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve Tomato Curry hot with steamed rice or chapathi or jeera rice.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.