This wholesome, healthy green bean and potato curry (Aloo Phali in Urdu) comes together in just 25 minutes and is SO versatile! Green beans are one of those awesome, quick cooking vegetables that make light work of getting dinner on the table FAST.
🥔 Ingredients
Here's a quick run down of the best ingredients to use for this recipe.
- Onion - it's important this is finely diced, and not chopped into large, clunky bits, so the onions can caramelise quicker and soften into the curry better. Given this is a quick recipe, it's essential you don't overlook this!
- Tomato purée - this helps with the colour, as well as ensuring this recipe is quick-cooking. If you can only use fresh, it will increase the cook time by about 4-5 minutes because we'll need to dry out the moisture from the tomato, and the colour won't be as deep as shown in the images.
- Potatoes - any you prefer, diced into bite-sized pieces. You can choose whether you want to peel them.
- Green beans - these are known as 'phali' in Urdu and Hindi, not to be confused with 'gawar ki sabzi'. In this recipe, I've used fresh green beans, chopped to 2-3cm long.
- Spices - most of these are regular appearances in a standard Pakistani curry, however there is the addition of mango powder (aamchoor). I highly recommend this - it adds a delicious but mild burst of tanginess to the curry and makes everything POP. If you don't have this, you can omit it but please, do try to get hold of it!
- Oil, minced garlic, green chillies, fresh coriander - not much to add here.
🥣 Method
As always, the full recipe including complete ingredients list is at the bottom of the post.
We'll start by heating up some oil in a pan over a high heat, then adding in some finely diced onion. Allow this to sauté for 5 minutes.
Add in minced garlic, spices (again, full list at the bottom of the post) + green chillies. Stir through, then add tomato purée. Allow this to sauté for 5 minutes.
Note: we don't want the onions to darken! In fact, we want to keep them lightly coloured, and more caramelised-looking than dark, unlike most standard Pakistani curries. This curry works MUCH better with the whole caramelised onion vibe! So, if your onions and browning too much over a high heat, bring the heat down to a medium.
Next, add in some diced potatoes, and sauté them for 3-5 minutes. Because this recipe is quite quick, these will need to be bite-sized to ensure they cook through.
Next, add some green beans which you've chopped down to 2cm-long. If you're short of time, feel free to skip the chopping - a'la my Phali Gosht recipe. Sauté for 2-3 minutes.
Now, turn the heat to low, cover and cook everything for 8-10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.
Stir in some chopped fresh coriander, and your green bean and potato curry is ready!
📽️ Video
If video is more your thing, you're in luck because I have a YouTube video for this recipe. If you haven't already, please do subscribe to my baby YouTube channel whilst you're there!
🫛 Substitutions + variations
Feel free to change up the potato and/or green beans as per your preference. All the other quantities in this recipe will remain the same.
- You can change the potato for any other 'hard' vegetables, such as pumpkin, butternut squash, carrots etc. Cook times will remain the same as the recipe, so long as you chop them up into bite-sized pieces.
- You can substitute the green beans for any other quick-cooking vegetable, such as broccoli, cabbage, peas, capsicum/bell pepper etc.
- You can also add in some chopped leafy greens to the recipe for some added healthful goodness.
🍽️ Serving suggestions
Serve this green bean and potato curry with a roti or paratha, inside a cheese toastie, or alongside some grilled meat - think Pakistani roast dinner!
To serve this alongside another curry, I'd recommend a meaty option such as a Chicken Bhuna, Lamb Bhuna or even a Fish Bhuna. For a vegetarian option, I think my Tadka Dal would go well with this.
I hope you enjoy this recipe. Lots of love, Fatima x
📋 Recipe
Green Bean and Potato Curry | Aloo Phali
Ingredients
- ¼ cup (65 ml) oil
- 1 medium onion finely diced
- 3 cloves minced garlic
- ½ teaspoon chilli flakes
- 1/ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- ¾ teaspoon coriander powder
- ½ teaspoon mango powder (aamchoor) optional but highly recommended
- 1 ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
- 2 whole green chillies
- 1 teaspoon tomato puree
- 9 oz (250) potatoes diced into bite sized pieces
- 7 oz (200 g) green beans chopped
- 1-2 tablespoon fresh coriander to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat a pan over a high heat and add the oil. Allow to oil to warm up.
- Add the finely diced onion. Sauté this over a high heat, stirring often, until the onions become translucent and limp - about 5 minutes.
- Add in the minced garlic, all the spices (chilli flakes, turmeric, cumin seeds, coriander powder, mango powder, salt) and the green chillies. Mix through, then add the tomato purée. Continue to sauté this for 5 minutes. We don't want to onions to darken much - this recipe works better when the onions are lighter and are caramelised. You may need to turn the heat down to a medium flame if you find the onions are browning too much.
- Add the diced potatoes. Sauté for 3-5 minutes.
- Add the green beans. Sauté for 2-3 minutes.
- Turn the heat down to low, cover and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.
- Stir in the chopped coriander and serve.
Video
Notes
- If you don't have tomato purée, you can use ½ medium-sized tomato chopped very finely. Using a fresh tomato will mean there will be more moisture in the pan, so you'll need to dry it out before adding the potatoes to get the same consistency as shown.
- Feel free to substitute any other quick cooking vegetable in place of the green beans, such as peas, broccoli, cabbage etc. Similarly, feel free to substitute the potato for any other similar vegetable, such as pumpkin, butternut squash or carrot.
- It's really important that the potatoes are diced evenly into small, bite-sized chunks. If they're cut into large chunks, they will take much longer to cook. If they're not diced evenly, they'll cook unevenly.
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Paul
Hi Fatima,
Is Gawar the same as Guvar?
If so it one of two types of Indian green beans that I have tried before,the other being Valor. Could I use either of these instead of the green beans?
I have too many potatoes just now so this is a welcome recipe.
Thanks,
Paul:-)
Fatima
Hi Paul - Gawar is different to the green beans I've used here. This is just a standard pack of green beans you can get at Sainsburys, Aldi etc.