Lamb Dhansak
You won’t find a better lamb dhansak anywhere!
As with all British Indian restaurant style curries, you will want to make your curry sauce and pre-cooked lamb ahead of time. This is how they do it at Indian restaurants and takeaways so that they can cook all of our favourite lamb curries quickly with nice tender pieces of lamb meat.
In the case of lamb dhansak, you will also need to prepare your lentils ahead of time.
All of the restaurant style curries featured on this site use a base curry sauce and pre-cooked meat. This will make it easier for you to please all of your guests at your next curry party by making their curries of choice.
I have actually made eight different curries for 12 guests in minutes simply by adding the right amount of cooked meats, curry sauce and additional ingredients to make the restaurant style curries of choice.
If you would like to try this recipe quickly and easily, try my small batch of curry sauce. If, however you would like to make a base sauce like they do at the best curry houses, make a large batch.
It freezes well and you can make loads of takeaway style curries with it in minutes. The most popular curry house style curries are all on this site. Just be sure to heat it up before adding it to your curry of choice.
A lot of people like pineapple in their dhansak. I personally don’t. If you do, add some fresh pineapple pieces and pineapple juice to this recipe to taste.
If you enjoy this lamb curry try my others:
Railway Curry
Lamb Curry
Keralan Lamb Curry
Stir Fried Lamb
Coconut Lamb
Pre Cooked Lamb
Restaurant Style Curries - How to Make a Delicious Lamb Dhansak
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
- 500ml (2 cups) restaurant style curry sauce
- 3/4 cup cooked red split lentils
- 600g cooked restaurant style lamb
- 2 finely chopped green chillies
- 1 teaspoon chilli powder
- 1 tablespoon garam masala
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped coriander leaves
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Melt the ghee in a large saucepan over medium heat.
- Add the curry sauce and the cooked lamb and stir to combine. Allow to simmer for about five minutes. The sauce with thicken and become darker.
- Add the green chilli, chilli powder, cumin, coriander powder and salt and pepper to taste.
- Just before serving, add the cooked lentils and the lemon juice. Stir often and let cook for about two minutes. Be careful not to let the lentils burn and stick to the bottom of the pan.
- TO SERVE
- Sprinkle with the garam masala and coriander leaves and check for seasoning.
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Thank you for your recipes I am cooking your lamb dhansak tonight!
I have tried so many times to make lamb dhansak like the curry shop over the road but your dish is the closest.
Thank you for the free ebook I’m looking forward to trying the recipe’s in there also.
Hi Phill
Thank you very much. Really glad you like the recipe. 🙂
Dan
Really looking forward to making this tonight after making my base a few days ago. As an Englishman living in the USA there’s nothing I miss more than a decent lamb dhansak. Can’t ever find good curry here.
This may seem a silly question but if I were going to make a larger batch (say double size), do I double up on everything? So if I’m using 4 cups of curry sauce, would I use ten tablespoons of ghee?
Thanks for this site, I’m so glad I found it.
Hi Matthew
Thanks for stopping by. You definitely could double up on the ghee and everything else. These days I usually use vegetable oil but both work well. Before blending the sauce, try to scoop up as much of the oil/ghee that rises to the top. It’s healthier and also the oil is perfectly seasoned. You can use it in your curries instead of plain oil.
Cheers,
Dan
Hi, you say “restaurant style curry sauce”. Could you give me an example please? Need to pop to a shop but don’t really know what I’m looking for? Any suggested brands? Thanks
Hi Rene
The curry sauce you need is mentioned in the intro. There are links to how to make it there.
Thanks,
Dan
Thanks so much for this recipe Dan. I am a recent immigrant from London to Brisbane and have not found anywhere over here that makes a good British style curry. I made this recipe without too much hope having made half-hearted attempts at a Dhansak with other people’s recipes, but this recipe truly is spot on. I was really, really pleased with it to the extent that I have just bought your book as a present for my Dad in the UK.
Thanks so much for making this publicly available, its a real life saver for those craving a good curry overseas and when I am next in London I will be buying another copy of your book for myself.
Hi James
Great to hear! Thank you very much. I’m glad you’re enjoying the recipes.
Dan
Hello. I have tried to make your dhanask several times from your book. But it is missing something. After several web searches i found that there are 2 tyoes of dhansak your one with lemon and pineapple and another. Dont get me wrong i enjoy this dhansak but i am looking for the takeaway version that has no pineapple in it. Could you point me in the right direction on how to make this please. Thanks and keep up the good work
Hi Mark
I’m not a big fan of pineapple but pineapple is usually added to takeaway curries. That’s why I included it in my recipe in the book. The British style dhansak has pineapple chunks in it but there is also the more authentic dhansak which usually doesn’t. Perhaps your takeaway uses more traditional methods. The authentic dhansak is made with up to five different types of lentils and usually with lamb. It’s really good but quite a lot different than what we find at most takeaways.
Hope this info helps.
Thanks,
Dan