One Pot Chole Pulao Chickpea Pulao

What is One Pot Recipe?

It simply means that the whole recipe is cooked only using one pot. The pot can be a pressure cooker, slow cooker, crockpot, instant pot, or just a regular pot. These recipes are perfect to cook for families that are busy, for students, and for people who don’t like to spend time cooking. You can make different curries, pasta, noodles, rice-based dishes like this chole pulao, etc. These one-pot recipes are amazingly delicious, and to save time you can also use some store-bought curry pastes and canned beans and lentils to make your life easy, and this is one such recipe.

Why should you always have canned beans at home?

I always have canned beans in my pantry. We all have busy days, stressful days or just long days at work. On these days I want to go home to a delicious comforting meal. Having canned beans at home, just means that I can include the additional protein in my meal. Chickpeas, black beans, pinto beans and cannellini beans to name a few are my staple. And chickpeas are my absolute favorite.

I love making this pulao, chole masala, and saag chole very often! I also add chickpeas in Thai curries, or any coconut milk-based curries loaded with veggies. Having access to these beans will definitely make you include them in your diet. Sometimes we are lazy to soak these beans and boil them in the morning. Canned beans just help you put a meal together and isn’t it just the best?

What is Chole Pulao?

Chole Pulao is a versatile rice-based dish that is loaded with veggies and chickpeas with spices. This is a one-pot recipe made in the instant pot, but you can also make it in a pressure cooker/ or a heavy bottom pot. I use canned chickpeas in this recipe, but you can totally meal prep the chickpeas in advance and use it in the recipe. Adding dry mango powder and chole masala is absolutely a game-changer in this recipe, so try not to skip it. You can find both these spices at the Indian store very easily.

Expert Tips To Make This Recipe

Use canned chickpeas to save time. Drain and rinse the canned chickpeas before adding them to the rice. You can infuse the oil with all the whole spices and remove them before adding the onions, to avoid biting on cardamoms and black peppercorns. Use any veggies you like. You can use 1 cup of mixed frozen vegetables if you don’t want to chop the vegetables. Roast the rice with spices to infuse the flavors in the rice. This gives the rice a beautiful flavor.

I like to use ghee to make this recipe, but you can totally use your preferred cooking oil. Use long-grain basmati rice to make this recipe. The fluffed rice is perfect for making a beautiful pulao.