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.
Learn more about the instant pot pot-in-pot method with this comprehensive guide!
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 tablespoon Ghee or Oil
- 1 teaspoon Cumin seeds (Jeera)
- 1 Green Chili Pepper sliced into 2 pieces or chopped
- 6 Curry Leaves (Kadi Patta)
- ¼ teaspoon 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
- ¼ teaspoon Ground Turmeric (Haldi powder)
- ½ teaspoon Coriander powder (Dhaniya powder)
- ½ teaspoon Red Chili powder (Mirchi powder)
- 1 teaspoon Salt
For Basmati Rice
- 1 cup Basmati Rice
- 1.25 cup Water
- 1 tablespoon Ghee or Oil (optional)
- 1 teaspoon 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.
Jennifer Young says
Very tasty and very easy to make. Will make again.
Piping Pot Curry says
Hi Jennifer - So happy to hear that. Thank you for sharing it back 🙂
Curry lover since childhood says
love the recipe which I did follow exactly first time. Since then I've adapted. However just noticed in the notes, to make thicker dahl reduce water amount to 2.5 cups. The original recipe says 1 cup of water. Please can you clarify this?
curry lover since childhood says
and 3 cups of water for the curry. Mine turned out quite soupy so I reduced to 2 cups total.
Cjoy says
Quick question
Is there any adjustment to the recipe if you don't cook the rice in the recipe? For dietary reasons I would like to leave the rice pot in pot out.
Meeta Arora says
Hello - The recipe should work as is even if you don't cook pot-in-pot rice. I would just suggest to let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes and then do a manual pressure release. Hope you enjoy the dal!
Meeta Arora says
Hello - For the dal, it is 3 cups of water for 1 cup of dal. For the pot-in-pot rice, it is 1 cup of rice to 1.2 cup of water. But yes, please do adjust the amount of liquid based on how thick you like your dal.
Angela B says
Loved the recipe! My family really enjoyed it and it tasted just like our local Indian restaurant. So economical to make too. Definitely will make it again.
I did end up cooking my dal and rice for 12 minutes total. They were both pretty raw at 5 minutes (and 5 NPR). -I’m not sure what I did wrong, but it’s an easy fix.
Meeta Arora says
Hi Angela - Happy to hear you enjoyed the dal!
Linda says
I love this recipe! It is so quick and so delicious! Thank you!
Piping Pot Curry says
Hi Linda - So happy to hear that. Thank you for sharing back 🙂
Vinny says
I tried this and turned out well ! However it feels like some spice is missing - Like it tastes fine but I cannot figure out if there is another spice that you've left out in your recipe. Can't figure out which one - Cumin or Kasthuri Methi ?
Meeta Arora says
Hi Vinny - Glad it turned out well. You can add some roasted cumin powder at the end if you like. Typically kasuri methi is not added to dals. Thanks for the feedback.
Kristi says
I love your recipes. I can't find curry leaves, though. What could I substitute? Thank you!
Meeta Arora says
Hi Kristi - It is totally fine to skip curry leaves in this recipe. If you can find a local indian grocery store, they would have curry leaves. Or you might be able to find dried curry leaves on Amazon.
Maria says
Hi Meeta,
Yesterday I was craving Indian but not much energy and time. So got the Instant Pot and made this dal and it was perfect. Thanks for the tip of less water as I do prefer it thicker especially as we were having naan and no rice. I also had some Paneer in the freezer and left over cooked spinach so gave the Instant Pot a quick rinse and made your saag paneer. Delicious meal and light clean up! We have enough dal and paneer left for another meal so I'll be making your Paneer Tikka Masala in the week. However, hubby was stuck on the image of your tandoori paneer naan pizza so I had to promise this as a treat in the near future.
Your spices are spot on and you have a ton of great recipes I can't wait to try.
Hope life is good in Los Gatos.
Maria
Meeta Arora says
Hi Maria - So happy to hear you enjoyed the dal and the saag. The naan pizza is a favorite for us too. Hope you all enjoy it!
RA D says
I am looking forward to making this! So many of my friends rave about this recipe. Question: if you do not have a tomato or onion at home, can you improvise in any other way? Would canned tomatoes work (if drained well etc)? I am craving something like this today and I had no planned haha. If not, I can wait to make this when I get to the grocery store to get a tomato and onion
Meeta Arora says
Hello - You can actually make the dal without fresh onions and tomatoes. You can add some canned tomatoes in place of the fresh. Would love to hear how it turns out!
Rimzim says
Hi Meeta,
I made your dal fry yesterday without tomatoes and it turned out superb. Only extra things I've added are an inch of ginger (minced) and cumin powder.
Thank you for the recipe. I will try it again when I have tomatoes on hand.
-Rimzim
Meeta Arora says
Hi Rimzin - So happy to hear you enjoyed the dal. Thank you for sharing back the changes you made.
Carly says
I'm confused how we're supposed to put the trivet/rice in at the same time *with* the daal? There's way too much liquid? Thanks
Meeta Arora says
Hi Carly - It is best to use a tall trivet in this case, so that the rice bowl is above the liquid level. I have linked to the trivet I use in the equipment list on the recipe.
Karin Mccoy says
Will the cook time be the same if you double the recipe?
Meeta Arora says
Hi Karin - The cooking time will remain the same even if you double the dal recipe.
Alma says
Best Dal I’ve ever made !!! Motivated me to care for my baby curry plant
Meeta Arora says
Hi Alma - Happy to hear you enjoyed the dal!