Lauki Chana Dal is a simple nutritious curry made with bottle gourd and bengal gram lentils. This is a North Indian or Punjabi style preparation for this curry made in a pressure cooker. Lauki Chana Dal is perfect to enjoy with roti or rice!
There are few curries that combine the goodness of both lentils and vegetables. This Lauki Chana Dal is one if them. Lauki Chana Dal is a perfect weekday curry that you can make in just 30 minutes in a pressure cooker or instant pot.
I always like to add veggies when making any lentils such as Spinach Dal, Kale Chana Dal and Sambar. It makes it a one-pot meal and adds so much more nutrition.
I have shared recipe for Turai, Lauki Curry & Chana Dal made in a pressure cooker before. Do check them out!
What is Lauki?
Lauki is the Hindi name for Bottle Gourd, which is a popular vegetable in many countries. Here are a few names I could find for bottle gourd:
- Bottle Gourd (the obvious)
- Cucuzza (the Italian name)
- Opo Squash or Opu Squash (the Asian name)
- Calabash (another Asian name)
- Lauki (the Indian name)
- Dudhi (another Indian name)
- Ghiya (another Indian name)
- Sorakaya (another Indian name)
- Long Melon
I am always amazed to find the similarities in cooking in various countries. Don’t forget to check out the Lauki Curry, Lauki Kofta and this Lauki Raita recipe made in the pressure cooker.
Health Benefits of Lauki & Chana Dal
Bottle Gourd has high fiber content, and helps cure acidity, indigestion and constipation. Chana dal (also known as split chickpeas or bengal gram) is good for diabetics due to its low glycemic index. It is also rich in protein, which makes it a great addition to a vegetarian diet.
How to prepare bottle gourd for cooking?
- When buying bottle gourd, choose ones that are pale green in color, firm, light in weight and slender. The flesh should not be soft when pressed.
- Wash the bottle gourd and slice the top and bottom portion where the stem is there. Discard the stems.
- Using a knife or peeler, remove the skin of the bottle gourd.
- Cut the peeled bottle gourd into 4 pieces lengthwise.
- If there are large seeds, then discard them by cutting the portion with the seeds lengthwise.
- Cut into half inch pieces for this curry.
How to make Lauki Chana Dal in Pressure Cooker?
- One pre-step for this recipe is soaking the chana dal for 30 minutes or up to 2 hours. This is required as Chana Dal takes longer to cook compared to lauki.
- Now let’s start with preparing the ingredients. We need very basic ingredients such as onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices for this curry. We want to cut the lauki into a bit large pieces, so that they cook well with the dal and do not turn to mush.
- We will start with heating the pressure cooker or instant pot on sauté mode. Add oil and cumin seeds. When the cumin seeds start to change color, add onions, ginger, garlic and green chillies. Saute for couple of minutes.
- Then add in the chopped tomatoes, spices and salt. Stir well.
- Now add the Chana Dal and chopped lauki. Then add water and mix it all. We add less water when cooking this curry, as lauki has high water content.
- Now we are ready to pressure cook the curry. Cook at high pressure for 8 minutes. Then do a 10 minute NPR, which means let the pressure naturally for 10 minutes, then manually release the pressure.
- If using a stovetop pressure cooker, cook on medium-high heat for 2-3 whistles.
- Add the lime juice and stir the curry. Garnish with cilantro.
Adding lime juice elevates the taste to a while new level. I highly recommend it.
We love to eat this Lauki Chana Dal with roti and a side of yogurt or raita.
Try this Lauki Chana Dal and let me know how it turned out.
If you are looking for more punjabi recipes, check out the below recipes:
Lauki Chana Dal Recipe – Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 cup Split Chickpeas (Chana dal)
- 2 cups Water, for soaking
- 1 tablespoon Oil
- 1 teaspoon Cumin seeds (Jeera)
- 1 cup Onion , diced
- 1/2 tablespoon Garlic, minced
- 1/2 tablespoon Ginger , grated
- 1 Green Chili Pepper, optional, adjust to taste
- 1 cup Tomato, diced
- 1 medium Bottle Gourd (Lauki) , peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (more prep details in the post)
- 1 cup Water, for cooking
- 1 tablespoon Lime juice
- Cilantro, to garnish
Spices
- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Turmeric (Haldi powder)
- 1/2 teaspoon Red Chili powder (Mirchi powder)
- 1 teaspoon Coriander powder (Dhaniya powder)
- 1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala
- 1 teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- Soak Chana dal along with the water for soaking for 30 minutes. Then drain the water and keep aside.
- Start the pressure cooker in sauté mode and heat oil in it. Add cumin seeds, and sauté for 30 seconds.
- Once the cumin seeds start to change color, add the onions, garlic, ginger, green chili and sauté for 2 minutes.
- Add tomatoes and spices and stir them well. Add chana dal, lauki and water for cooking. Stir it all up. Pressure Cancel and close the lid with vent in sealing position.
- Change the electric pressure cooker setting to manual or pressure cook mode at high pressure for for 8 mins.
- If using a stovetop pressure cooker, cook on medium-high heat for 2-3 whistles.
- After the pressure cooking is done, let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then release the pressure manually. Add lime juice and give a good stir.
- Garnish with cilantro and enjoy Lauki Chana Dal with roti or rice.
I had never made lauki chana dal before and this turned out to be awesome! Thank you for the recipe..
Hi Neha – Yay. Thank you for sharing back 🙂
THANK YOU . tastes sooo good
Hi Abhilasha – Thank you for sharing your experience. 🙂
Excellent recipe! Very easy steps and turned out delicious! Lauki and dal were cooked to
perfection. All your recipes are great Meeta!
Hi Savi – Glad to hear that.Thank you for sharing back! 🙂
So excited to find this recipe! My neighbor gave me an enormous bottle squash and I had no idea what to do with this. This recipe sounds perfect!
Very tasty! 2nd recipe of yours I’ve made recently. Both were spot on!
Thank you!!
Thanks for your recipe.
When do you add the lemon juice?
Hi Nivi – I add lime juice in the end after pressure cooking. It is best to add sour ingredients later as they can hinder the cooking process. Hope you enjoy the lauki chana dal.
what a useless instruction , wasted my 2 hours. did you not think of explicitly calling out peeling and deseeding the lauki? someone opens your blog because they arent really very well versed in indian dishes and your half baked – unhelpful instructions only wastes their time. bookmarked so that I never come across your blog again.
Hi Jay – Sorry to hear you needed more details to make this recipe. I had mentioned peel and cut into pieces along with the ingredients list. Typically, removing the seeds is not necessary for this recipe. Only when the seeds are large and become hard, we need to remove the seeds. This happens when the bottle gourd was not plucked at the right time. That said, thank you for the prompt. I have now included more details of how to choose and cut a bottle gourd in the recipe. I hope you give this blog another chance!
Omg I have never come across such a rude response. Meeta hats off to you for replying so politely. But what fun it must have been to use the lauki even without peeling!! I would advice you need to try basic stuff first, if you are so new to cooking…btw all this is for free and someone is investing so much of their time!
This blog is awesome ( and I am in no way related or even know the author). My loyalty is purely based on the amazing, simple recipes I have tried.
Thank you Arpita for your kind words. I very much appreciate your support!
We really loved this recipe. I had to substitute split yellow lentils (which cooked perfectly in that time frame) because that’s all I had on hand. And added potatoes and spinach because I wanted to use them up. I also had a huge cucuzza/lauki (5 feet long) I was afraid it would be tough but I pared and deseeded it and the pressure cooker made it tender. Thank you for the inspiration! (Accidentally left these comments on another recipe for lauki! My apologies!)
Glad you found the recipe useful, Jennifer!
This recipe was perfect.
Hey Marisa – Glad to hear you enjoyed the curry!
hello my instant pot doesn’t have manual setting button how do I cook this Lauki chana dal? please help 🙁
Hey Sweete – Use the “pressure cook” option, it is the same as manual in newer versions off instant pot. Hope you enjoy the curry!
thank you for your help.. I will the “pressure cook” option as you stated and see how it turns out!!.. thank you so much for your help again:)