This mushy pea curry is a delicious and healthy dish made with tinned ingredients. Its creamy texture is made in minutes and is packed with flavour, then simmered with chunks of chicken breasts and vegetables.
This meaty curry is a quick and easy midweek dinner for the whole family that requires almost no cooking skills!
All you need to do is mash or use a hand blender to smooth some canned food for a thick curry sauce. Then cook it with some optional diced chicken and vegetables.
This chicken curry was inspired by my early day enjoying Slimming World recipes which used cans of mushy peas as part of their diet plan.
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✔️ Why You'll Love this Recipe
- Uses simple store cupboard ingredients
- Easy midweek dinner in under 30 minutes
- Packed with flavour with a creamy texture
- A good way to increase nutrients with hidden veg
- A budget recipe that's significantly cheaper than a takeaway
🛒 Ingredient Notes
Please see the printable recipe card with a full list of ingredients, preparation instructions and daily values at the bottom of this post.
- Oil spray - we use a low calorie cooking oil spray, such as Fry Light for weight loss for an unofficial Slimming World mushy pea curry or Weight Watchers.
- Tins of mushy peas - for protein and a creamy texture
- Canned tomatoes - alternatively, you could use passata or 6 fresh tomatoes
- Baked beans - for fibre, protein and sweetness
- Chicken breast - cut into bite-sized pieces for protein
- Spices - tablespoons of curry powder, mild chilli powder, and smoked paprika
- Garlic clove - minced and sauteed for a more complex flavour
- Onion - we use a large onion, but you could use 2 small onions, diced
- Chicken stock cube - this is not made up with water - just added to the pot
- Seasoning - this is salt and black pepper
- Vegetables - Any soft veg you wish (mushrooms, courgettes, peas etc)
📋 Instructions
Pour all the tinned food into a food processor and blend into a thick sauce and set aside.
A good alternative is to use a stick blender in a large mixing bowl.
In a lightly sprayed pan, saute the onions, garlic and salt and pepper until softened.
Note, you'll need a large pan for this recipe!
Now add all of the spices, chicken and mushrooms to the onion mixture and fry for 1 minute while stirring to coat everything.
Then over medium heat, cook for 5 minutes or until you have golden brown chicken chunks.
Pour in the sauce, stock cube, and the rest of the vegetables and cover again and simmer for approx 25-30 minutes.
Tip: if you prefer a bit of sweetness, stir in a level tablespoon of sweetener (Sukrin or Pure Via stevia), honey, or mango chutney at the end.
👩🍳 Substitutions
Depending on your dietary needs, here are a few simple swaps you can make:
- Stock - use a Gluten Free stock cube if needed, or vegetable if making a vegetarian pea curry
- Chicken - this is optional but can be swapped for cooked turkey, ham, beef curry, etc
- Vegetarian - swapped with Quorn veggie mince, chicken style pieces, etc
⚖️ Variations
If you want to enhance this homemade chicken curry, then here are a few ideas you can use
- Spicy - add slices of fresh green chilli, curry paste, pinches of red chilli flakes and pepper flakes for extra heat
- Deluxe - stir in a knob of butter for a butter chicken style curry, or peanut butter for a satay twist
- Kid friendly - omit the chilli powder and serve with a jacket potato or French fries instead of rice
See this slow cooker chicken curry recipe without peas here on my website!
🔪 Equipment
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- Chopping board
- Chopping knife
- Measuring spoons
- garlic press
- Large saucepan
- Stick hand blender or food processor
❄️ Storage
Storing - we prefer eating mushy peas curry fresh, but it can be stored in an airtight container refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Freezing - cool to room temperature and store in a freezer-safe container for up to 3 months.
Reheating - If you want to eat the next day, defrost in the fridge if required and microwave until piping hot, or on the hob or stove.
💡Pro Tips
- Cut the chicken into small bite-sized pieces for a quicker cooking time in the sauce
- This recipe makes a lot, so use a very large saucepan, or cook it in 2 saucepans toward the end if needed
- It's a little bit more expensive, but if you want a restaurant-style taste, stir in 2 tbsps of tikka curry paste and stir in lime juice at the end with fresh coriander
🍽️ Serving Suggestions
Rice: we love eating this easy mushy pea curry recipe on a bed of basmati rice, or you could have jasmine rice or even Mexican rice.
Indian bread: we often indulge in naan breads for dipping, or enjoy roti (chapati) or other flatbreads.
Poppadoms: we have to have crispy poppadoms for crunch, and some mango chutney as part of a pickle tray
Pies: this is similar to a mushy pea gravy, so wouldn't go amiss as a pie and curry recipe
Potatoes: either with mashed potatoes, oven chips, loaded potato skins or any other potato based recipe in between!
❓ FAQ
Instead of cans of mushy peas, it can be made using a recipe for mushy peas first. Soak 9oz of dried marrowfat peas overnight in water with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Then simmered until softened.
Yes, you can throw everything into your slow cooker and cook on high heat for 3-4 hours. You don't have to blend the canned ingredients, but it looks more appetizing if you do.
As the vegetables will cook in a thick sauce, it's best to use ones that cook easily, such as mushrooms, spinach, cauliflower, and broccoli.
From experience, I would avoid hard root vegetables in this recipe like carrots, etc with a high GI index which also takes longer to cook. This can affect how much weight you want to lose.
Yes! Using a lidded casserole dish, you can bake it in the oven at 160c fan, 180c conventional, 350F, gas mark 4 for 25-30 minutes.
➕ More Curry Recipes
Looking for other healthy curry recipes like this? Try these:
🍽️Pairing
Here's what we think goes great with this healthy pea curry:
📖 Recipe
Mushy Pea Curry
Ingredients
- Frylight
- 1 Onion diced
- 1 clove Garlic minced
- 2 Chicken breasts cut into bite-sized chunks
- 2 tins Mushy peas canned
- 1 tin Chopped tomatoes canned
- 1 tin Baked beans
- 2 tablespoon Curry powder
- 2 teaspoon Mild chilli powder
- 1 teaspoon Smoked paprika
- 1 stock cube Chicken
- Seasoning
- 1 tablespoon Mango chutney optional for sweetness or sweetener
- 2 cups Garden peas
- 50 g Green beans chopped
- 150 g Mushrooms sliced
Instructions
- Blend all the tinned food.
- Gently fry all the other ingredients together in a deep pan (preferably non stick) until the chicken is cooked and the onions are soft.
- Add any soft veg and stir in the blended mixture and gently simmer for approx 20 mins with the lid on.
Disclaimer
*This is an unofficial page and has no affiliation or endorsement from Slimming World. Slimming World’s website can be found at https://www.slimmingworld.co.uk/. Any syn values are personal estimates and not verified by Slimming World.
EQUIPMENT AFFILIATE LINKS
Video
Notes
- Cut the chicken into small bite-sized pieces for a quicker cooking time in the sauce
- This recipe makes a lot, so use a very large saucepan, or cook it in 2 saucepans toward the end if needed
- It's a little bit more expensive, but if you want a restaurant-style taste, stir in 2 tbsps of tikka curry paste and stir in lime juice at the end with fresh coriander
Robert steers
I've had this before and its gorgeous
Nick
I've just recently joined Slimming World. I've lost 10lbs in my first 2 weeks, and I'm on the look out for different recipes. I will definitely give this a go.
mrsdimplesbeauty
I love this but I actually prefer not to blend it and add my rosemary sausages to it but then again I am weird lol
Tastefully Vikkie
Lol... rosemary sounds delicious with it. I'll have to try that combination - maybe for my working lunch without my fiance otherwise I may get shot. He loved it the first time round, then didn't when I didn't blend - he's definitely my toughest critic to please and sets the bar high 🙂 x