I soaked a little more than 2 cups and in the morning I had around 5.5 cups of it! Drain the water in which you had soaked the chickpeas.ġ. Soak the chickpeas overnight in enough water to cover them. Red chili powder: 1/2 teaspoon or to tasteĭried fenugreek leaves : 1/2 tbsp, crushed And before you start wondering, let me assure you that the tea bags do not hamper the taste of chickpeas in any way. I added only 2, but for a deeper darker brown color, you can add more tea bags. You will notice that I added 2 tea bags while cooking chickpeas in the pressure cooker, that’s because the tea bags help in giving chole a dark brown/black color. Hubby feels that I make the best chole, maybe he’s just biased but at least that make me pretty confident about this recipe -) So after I got married I really tried to master making punjabi chole and after lots of trials and errors, I think I have now found the perfect recipe.

My husband loves chole, well that’s given since he is a punjabi. But I usually get the masala from the store, saves me time and also tastes good. One can make chole masala powder at home too by dry roasting ingredients like cumin, cloves, coriander, peppercorn, cardamom etc. A special blend of spices called “chole powder/masala” is easily available at every Indian store. So what actually is chole masala? In this recipe, chickpeas are cooked with onions, tomatoes and lots of spices. In fact in north India no wedding or party is complete until you have chole masala on the menu. I remember whenever we would call someone over for lunch or dinner, mom would almost always make chole. Punjabi chole masala or chana masala is one of the most popular curry dishes from India.

Best punjabi dishes