Chana Dal Fry A Delicious Instant Pot Chana Dal Recipe

Why You’ll Love This Instant Pot Dal Recipe

Fast. A delicious meal ready in under 30 minutes.Easy. Fry up onions and spices while your dal cooks in the Instant Pot.Vegetarian. A great Vegetarian-friendly dish.Versatile. Use any split dal you have in your pantry.

What Is Chana Dal In English?

Chana is actually nothing more than split chickpeas, or garbanzo beans. For this dish, you can also have the cooked chana dal already using the PIP rice and Chana recipe I’ve provided here. Or you can make it as the recipe calls for below, which is just the dal.

Does Chana Dal Need To Be Soaked?

Unlike some other lentils, this kind does not need to be soaked before you cook them. Since it is a split lentil, it cooks much faster than a whole bean.

Do I Have To Use An Instant Pot For This Recipe?

No, you don’t. You can definitely cook the chana dal on the stovetop. It’s just that it takes a while and you have to keep an eye on the pot so it doesn’t boil over.

How To Make Stove Top Chana Dal

If you want to do this, here are the steps:

Is Chana Dal The Only Thing I Can Use In This Recipe?

Nope, it’s not. This can be made with any split dal, such as tuvar, masoor, moong, etc. The dal must be split though so don’t use whole beans, as what you want is a creamy final texture. But I like chana dal and it is less likely to cause sugar/insulin spikes than some other dals, so if I must have dal, that’s what I have. Besides, chana dal just tastes so good to me. So in this picture below, you can use ANY of these dals–except the little brown ones at the top, as that is a whole bean, not a split dal.