CSA Layered Indian Dinner from The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook for Your Instant Pot

Break out your Instant Pot and make Kathy Hester’s CSA Layered Indian Dinner. This recipe comes together in no time – just mix the ingredients together, set it, and forget it. Dinner is that easy! 

Knowing he can never go wrong with a shiny new kitchen gadget, Dennis bought me an Instant Pot for Valentine’s day in 2015. I excitedly pulled it out of the box and touched all of the buttons, and then left it neglected on my kitchen counter for the better part of a year, not knowing quite what to do with it. I had no idea how to cook with it or if I’d blow up my kitchen when I tried. I finally broke down and watched some YouTube videos, and then I started cooking.

Shortly after I started my foray into Instant Pot cooking, Kathy Hester announced that she was working a vegan Instant Pot cookbook, and she said she needed testers. I signed up, because I wanted more recipes to add to my pressure-cooking arsenal.

The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook for Your Instant Pot: 80 Easy and Delicious Plant-Based Recipes That You Can Make in Half the Time by Kathy Hester just hit bookshelves this week, but because I was a recipe tester, I’ve already made quite a lot of the recipes. This book is a must-have for anyone who has an Instant Pot!

For Instant Pot newbies, Kathy starts the book with the ins and outs of pressure-cooking. She explains how to use an Instant Pot, and well as how to care for it, and what all of those buttons on the front actually do. At the back of the book, she also shares some of her favorite accessories along with pressure-cooking resources. The book also contains handy charts for pressure-cooking beans and grains.

The recipes in The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook for Your Instant Pot cover the gamut of everything you could possibly need a day – breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and even DIY staples. You’ll find comforting soups and stews, vegetable side dishes, pasta dishes, tamales, bean burgers, and even cakes. I didn’t know it was possible to make cake in an Instant Pot, but the Zucchini Lemon Spelt Snack Cake cooked up light and fluffy, and it didn’t require turning the oven on, which was a plus in the hot summer weather.

While recipe testing, I became a big fan of Kathy’s layered dinners – meal components layered in the Instant Pot so that everything for your meal is ready at the same time. I had no idea that this was even a possibility! You can just set the Instant Pot, and do something else while dinner cooks. The One-Pot Burrito Bowls, Southern Breakfast, and CSA Layered Indian Dinner were among my favorite recipes from the book.

If you have an Instant Pot you need to add The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook for Your Instant Pot to your cookbook collection!

Print

CSA Layered Indian Dinner

Yields 4 servings

Author Kathy Hester

Ingredients

YELLOW DAL LAYER

• 2 cups 475 ml water
• ½ cup 96 g yellow split peas, moong dal, red lentils or combination
• 2 tsp 8 g grated ginger
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp garam masala
• ¼ tsp ground turmeric
• ¼ tsp chili powder
• ⅛ tsp ground coriander

CURRIED ROOT VEGETABLE LAYER

• 2 cups 490 g diced turnip, beet potato or other root vegetable
• 1 tbsp 15 ml water
• 1 tbsp 6 g finely shredded coconut
• 1 tsp crumbled curry leaves dry or fresh (optional)
• ½ tsp grated ginger
• ¼ tsp minced garlic
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• ¼ tsp ground coriander
• ¼ tsp ground turmeric
• ¼ tsp garam masala
• ⅛ tsp chili powder
• ⅛ tsp fennel seeds

RICE LAYER

• 1 cup 185 g brown basmati rice
• 1¼ cups 295 ml water

BEFORE SERVING

• Salt to taste

Instructions

1. For the yellow dal layer, add all the yellow dal ingredients directly to the Instant Pot liner, mix well, and add the rack on top of that.
2. For the curried vegetable layer, add all the curried root vegetable ingredients to a short Pyrex container and toss. Place on the rack above the dal. (If you need to, you can wrap this layer in foil if you can’t fit two Pyrex containers above the dal.)
3. For the rice layer, combine the rice and water together in a short Pyrex container and place, uncovered, on top of the root veggie layer.
4. Cook on high pressure for 40 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally. Once the pressure indicator goes down, remove the lid and carefully lift out the pans.
5. Before serving, taste each component and add salt to taste.

Recipe Notes

From The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook for Your Instant Pot by Kathy Hester. Printed with permission from Page St. Publishing.

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