Instant Pot Dal and Rice is the most delicious Indian comfort food. Toor dal or Yellow Split Pigeon Pea cooked with onions, tomatoes and flavorful spices, along with pot-in-pot basmati rice for a complete meal. This is a vegan & gluten free Dal Fry!
Dal and Rice are the staple food in many indian homes. It is basically a lentil stew made with split pigeon peas served with rice Also, known as Varan Bhaat in Marathi.
What is Dal?
Dal is basically dried pulses. These dried pulses can be whole or split. Dal is also used as a term for various soups prepared with these dried pulses. It is also called Daal, Dahl or Dhal.
Dal is the main protein dish for many vegetarians, and hence a dish prepared almost everyday in an Indian home. Every region in Indian makes dal in different ways. In North India, it is made by tempering with cumin, curry leaves, onion and tomato. In South India, it is used to make sambar.
You will find it interesting that all of over India, dal is prepared in a stovetop pressure cooker. Hence it is a perfect dish to many in your electric pressure cooker or instant pot. Check out 10+ Instant Pot Lentils recipes.
Lentils used for Pressure Cooker Dal Fry
Toor dal or Yellow Split Pigeon Pea or Arhar Dal is the one of the most popular dal made in India. The cooked toor dal is also popularly called as Dal Tadka or Dal Fry. Dal tadka is very quick to prepare and can be ready in minutes. It is one of the easiest to make for a week night dinner.
I have also shared a different slightly sweeter preparation of toor dal in this delicious Gujarati Dal recipe.
Toor Dal Nutrition
Toor dal is from the legume family, and has a number of health benefits.
- It contains Folic acid, an important vitamin for all women.
- Toor dal contains protein and dietary fiber. Legumes such as toor dal are especially beneficial for vegetarians as they provide necessary protein.
- Toor dal also contain carbohydrates, which our body needs to generate energy. They contain complex carbohydrates, which are digested slowly by the body and are much better than simple carbohydrates.
How to make Indian Dal Fry in Instant Pot?
This recipe shows how to make Dal Fry in Instant Pot. The main difference in this preparation is that I made it as a one-pot recipe. Usually we boil the dal separately and then add the tadka in it. In this recipe, I cook the tadka in the pot before adding the dal and cook the dal along with the tadka.
Start with heating oil in the instant pot. Then add cumin seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida and garlic. Once the garlic is lightly browned, add chopped onions and cook for 2-3 minutes. Lightly brown the onions, then add chopped tomatoes and spices. Add toor dal and water. No need to soak the dal for this recipe.
The below steps show pot-in-pot basmati rice cooked along with the yellow lentils. More details about pot-in-pot below.
Pressure Cook for 5 minutes and then release the pressure 5 minutes after the beep. Garnish with cilantro and additional garam masala if you like a spice kick. Don't worry if the dal does not look well mixed when you open the pot. Stir it well and it will be delicious.
If you do soak the dal for 2 hours, you can reduce the cooking time to 3 minutes for toor dal.
A note about consistency - In North India, dal is preferred such that each grain can be seen and not all mushed up. However I hear in South India, the preference is to cook dal to a the consistency of sambar, where each grain is not visible and it is more like a smooth soup. For this consistency, pressure cook for 8-10 minutes at high pressure.
Dal Fry with Pot-in-Pot Basmati Rice
One of the big advantages of the Instant Pot is – the option to do Pot-in-Pot Cooking or PIP. This means being able to cook multiple things at a time, by also cooking in a small pot inside the main pot. To do pot-in-pot cooking, you need a tall trivet and stainless steel containers that you can use within the main pot.
Another important thing with pot-in-pot cooking is to consider the cooking time for the dishes you want to cook together. As an example, toor dal takes about 5 mins to cook at high pressure and basmati rice take about 4-6 mins at high pressure. Hence if I add rice pot-in-pot with these lentils, they would get cooked well. I would not cook brown rice along with these lentils, however they would work well with kidney beans that cook in 30 mins at high pressure.
Once you add all ingredients for Dal in the instant pot, place the trivet and then the bowl of rice with water. This way they will both cook together. See pictures above for reference.
Enjoy dal served over basmati rice and some homemade ghee (this would make it non-vegan)!
Why you will love this Instant Pot Dal & Rice:
√ It is easy to make in the instant pot with very less active time needed.
√ Healthy, nutritious & protein rich
√ This dal be made ahead and freezes well.
√ Vegan & Gluten free
If you like this Dal Fry, you might like these below lentils too:
Instant Pot Dal Tadka / Dal Fry with Basmati Rice
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp Ghee or Oil
- 1 tsp Cumin seeds (Jeera)
- 1 Green Chili Pepper sliced into 2 pieces or chopped
- 6 Curry Leaves (Kadi Patta)
- ¼ tsp Asafoetida (Hing) optional, skip for gluten-free
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- ½ Onion finely chopped
- 1 Tomato finely chopped
- 1 cup Split Pigeon Pea (Toor dal) washed
- 3 cup Water
- Cilantro to garnish
Spices
For Basmati Rice
- 1 cup Basmati Rice
- 1.25 cup Water
- 1 tbsp Ghee or Oil (optional)
- 1 tsp Salt (optional)
Instructions
- Start the instant pot in sauté mode and heat the oil in it. Add cumin seeds, green chili, curry leaves, garlic and asafoetida.
- After the garlic turns light brown, add the chopped onions and cook for 2 minutes until the onions turn golden brown.
- Add tomato and spices and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Add the washed dal and water. Stir it all up.
- Place the trivet. In a bowl, add all ingredients for basmati rice and place it on top of the trivet. Close the lid with vent in sealing position.
- Change the instant pot setting to manual or pressure cook mode at high pressure for for 5 mins. After the instant pot beeps, let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes, then release the pressure manually (5 minute NPR).
- Using tongs, carefully take out the bowl of basmati rice. Then take out the trivet.
- Garnish with cilantro and stir. Optionally, sprinkle the juice of half a lemon. Dal tadka is ready to be served.
Video
Notes
Note: Nutrition values are my best estimates. If you rely on them for your diet, use your preferred nutrition calculator.
If i don't make the rice in the pressure cooker, does it affect the overall cooking time of the dal?
Hello - No, you can cook the dal for the same amount of time. I would suggest to do 10 minute pressure release when not cooking rice. Hope you enjoy the dal!
Meeta, can you tell me where the inside rice pot is from? I am having trouble finding one.
Hi - You can find the stackable containers on Amazon. I just added links to the containers and trivet in the equipment section on the recipe card. Hope that helps!
Hello - I added the links to the containers and trivet to the recipe card. Let me know if you need any more details.
Been making some variation of this every week since I found it. Depending on what I have in the pantry I improvise a little bit. Great framework for consistently great dal.
Hi Duncan - Glad to hear you found the recipe helpful!
Meeta this is a fab recipie . I doubled the amounts as I like to freeze dal for no cook days.
It freezes great .
Thank you so much .
Hello there - Delighted to hear that. Thanks for getting back 🙂
Hi Meeta, love your recipes!! I just had some of your Bhindi Masala for dinner and it was heavenly. I want to make this recipe without the pot in pot rice, would the cooking time be the same still? Thank you!
Hi Sam - Glad to hear you enjoyed the bhindi masala. Yes, the cooking time will remain the same even if you skip the pot-in-pot rice.
Hi Meeta ,
I made this Dal today and have to say it came out brilliantly, thanks to your instructions. I like my ‘curries’ spicy so I added 3 Birdseye chillis and just over half a teaspoon of red chilli powder.
Love the instant pot , drastically reduced the time to cook food
Hi- So happy to hear that. Thank you for sharing it back 🙂
Hey Meeta, just confirming rice is also not soaked in this recipe, right ?
Hi Saumya - Thats right, I do not soak the rice.
I just made it. It is so good. I always add more spices , otherwise it is too bland for me. Every 10 days I make this one or the one with red lentils, but this one is my favourite.
I love the website, it is so easy to navigate and so far I am not disappointed.
Thank you very much. I am new to instant pot and to Indian food and I am happy with both.
Hi Bozenna - So glad to hear you have been enjoying the indian recipes. Thank you for sharing back your feedback!
Can this be made with red lentils?
Hi Christina - Here is a similar recipe with red lentils - https://pipingpotcurry.com/red-lentil-masoor-dal-instant-pot/. Hope you enjoy it!
LOVE this recipe, I’ve made it successfully with these exact proportions but when I doubled the recipe it became watery. What is your recommendation when doubling the quantity?
Hi Anchal - Thank you! I usually do double the liquid, as the dal soak it up as it cools down. But it would be totally fine to reduce the quantity of water to 1.5 times and then add more later as needed.