If you’re vegetarian, Indian food is one of the best options out there. While it seems that most authentic cuisines have to be modified for the vegetarian, India has a million traditional meatless dishes. Indian food is packed with flavor, healthy and so incredibly satisfying.

Before meeting my husband, most of my Indian food knowledge was based on the typical dishes found in most Indian restaurants in Los Angeles. While those dishes are a delight, they are a small portion of what is out there in terms of Indian recipes. And like most restaurant food, it is much heavier than we generally like to eat at home. Indian vegetarian home cooking is much lighter and healthier, very flavorful, and there is so much variety that it is hard to get bored.

After meeting my husband, I began my slow ascent to the joy of Indian vegetarian cooking. I started with one of Tejas’s specialties: rajma masala, kidney beans in an onion and tomatoey gravy (think Indian chili) then on to dal (Indian lentils). It wasn’t until we were married that I got into trying out the different vegetable dishes (call subjis or shaks) and other various recipes, many not so well known by non-Indians. My study has been a mix of random Google searches, my mother in law’s teaching, and constantly bugging my husband Tejas, “does this taste right?”, “have you heard of this dish?”, and now Pinterest.

It didn’t take long to realize that Indian vegetarian food is really easy to make. Sure there are lots of complicated dishes, but every cuisine has those. My blog has all levels since I cook based on what I want to eat, rather than how complicated a dish is. But I thought it was time to really break it down, show people that are intimidated to try cooking Indian food that it really isn’t as daunting as it looks. So begins my goal to provide a more step by step approach to Indian Vegetarian cooking. There are so many ways to cook Indian food and so many techniques, and I probably mix both western and Indian techniques in my way of cooking.