~649 cal · 29g protein · 95g carbs · 19g fat (estimated, per serving)
🍽️
Dark spiced chickpea curry garnished with ginger and cilantro
🇮🇳 Punjab
Chole is Punjab's Sunday-morning icon, ladled out with fried bhature bread at roadside dhabas. The trick that separates great chole from good: simmering the chickpeas with a teabag, which lends the deep mahogany color and faint tannic edge prized in Amritsar.
Sign in to save recipes to your book and leave reviews.
Make it yours
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
Ingredients
Serves 4 —
•
3 cups (2 cans) cooked chickpeas
•
1 black tea bag
•
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
•
2 tomatoes, puréed
•
2-inch piece ginger, half minced, half julienned
•
4 cloves garlic, minced
•
2 tbsp chole masala (or garam masala + amchur)
•
1 tsp each ground cumin, coriander, and chili
•
3 tbsp neutral oil
•
1 handful cilantro, chopped
Instructions
1
Simmer the chickpeas in 2 cups of water with the tea bag for 10 minutes; discard the bag, keep the liquid.
2
Fry the onion in oil over medium-high until deeply browned at the edges, about 8 minutes.
3
Add minced ginger and garlic; cook 1 minute. Add the tomato purée and cook until the oil separates, about 6 minutes.
4
Stir in all the spices, then the chickpeas with their tea-dark liquid. Simmer 15 minutes, mashing a few chickpeas to thicken the gravy.
5
Finish with julienned ginger and cilantro. Serve with rice, bhature, or gluten-free flatbread.
Amritsar dhaba-style chole.
Ratings & reviews
Sign in to rate this recipe once you’ve cooked it.
No reviews yet — be the first to cook it.
🌏 While it simmers — know your destination
📍
Punjab. Land of five rivers, tandoors, and generous vegetarian tables.
🗺️
India. A subcontinent where every state is its own food country.
🌍
Asia. From street-cart woks to slow monastery kitchens.
The story behind this dish is up top — worth a read while the pot works.
👩🍳
Richard Moore & Kelsey Tucker
Recipes cooked, tested, and researched by the creators of Spin the Globe. How we build our recipes →
More from India
Kerala Ishtu (Coconut Vegetable Stew)
A gentle, fragrant stew of potatoes and vegetables in coconut milk with ginger, green chili, and curry leaves.
Pav Bhaji
Mumbai’s beach-stall classic: a buttery mashed vegetable curry with toasted buns, lime, and raw onion.
Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani
The dum method: marinated chicken and half-cooked saffron rice sealed together so the pot finishes the dish in steam.