Vegan Chinese Vegetable Curry

Name: Vegan Chinese Vegetable Curry
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1 medium yellow onion (diced); 3 cloves garlic (minced); 2 teaspoons minced ginger; 1-2 tablespoons Malaysian curry powder (or Indian curry powder*(see notes)); 1 teaspoon ground turmeric; 1/2 teaspoon five spice powder; 1 stalk curry leaves (destemmed (optional)); 3 small Chinese eggplant (quartered, then cut into 2 inches pieces (about 1/2 pound/230g)); 1/2 can coconut milk (full-fat or trimmed (about 200ml or 3/4 cup) ); 1 1/2 cup water; 1 medium tomato (diced); 1 cup Chinese long beans (roughly sliced (about 5oz/150g)); 1 tablespoon soy sauce (or tamari/shoyu); salt (to taste); 4-5 leaves cabbage (roughly chopped)

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

This vegan Chinese curry features colorful veggies cooked in a creamy, rich curry sauce. This amazing one-pot dish is quick to make and ready in 30 minutes. A cozy weeknight dinner that your whole family will love!

Stirring a bowl of curry with a ceramic spoon with spoonful of curry powder, glass of water and bowl of rice beside.

Skip the takeout, and give this Malaysian-style vegan Chinese curry a try instead! Pack with tons of flavor, this versatile dish will please even the pickiest of eaters. You also get to customize the spice level to your own liking!

Jump to:

💚Why you will love this recipe
🧅What you will need
📃Ingredients notes and substitutions
🔪How to make
✔Helpful tips
✨Variations
🍽How to serve
❔Commonly asked questions
🍽More vegan curry recipes
📖 Recipe

💚Why you will love this recipe

Healthier than takeout - This Chinese vegetable curry is packed with a variety of colourful and nutrient-rich vegetables, and is less greasy and lower in calories. Plus, this homemade version taste better and fresher that takeout in my opinion!
The perfect hassle-free meal - This recipe only calls for simple ingredients that are easy to find. Plus, minimal prepping is needed, and dinner can be served in almost no time.
Highly customizable - Most component of this vegan Chinese curry is swappable, and you can also adjust the spice level and flavor to suit your taste buds.

🧅What you will need

Ingredients needed like cabbage, eggplant, onion, tomato, coconut milk, and green beans.

Ingredients needed like spices, soy sauce, curry powder, onion, and ginger.

📃Ingredients notes and substitutions

Eggplant - I highly recommend using Chinese or Japanese eggplants instead of the regular ones as they are less bitter in flavors.
- If you choose to use regular eggplants, soak them in salt water for 30 minutes or so to remove some of its bitterness. Check out this post on how to brine eggplants for a full detailed instructions.
Coconut milk - Make sure to use canned coconut milk that are meant for cooking, not the carton ones! It is recommended to use the full-fat version, but you can also use light coconut milk to make this vegan Chinese curry lower in fat.
Vegetable stock - You can replace it with 1 ½ cups of water + vegetable bouillon/stock powder.
Curry powder - Use Malaysian ones, if possible like the Baba's meat curry powder. You could also use Indian curry powder, but they might be slightly spicier.
Soy sauce - can be substituted with tamari or shoyu. Do use gluten-free ones, if needed.
Curry leaves - An optional ingredient. You can usually find them in Asian markets.

🔪How to make

Here is a quick rundown on the steps involved in making Chinese vegetable curry. As usual, the full detailed recipe will be in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Heat up a Dutch oven or soup pot. Start by sauteing onion until translucent. Then, add in garlic, curry leaves, curry powder, turmeric, and Chinese 5 spice. Fry until fragrant.

Collage showing sauteing onion then adding in spices, garlic, ginger and curry powder in a white Dutch oven.

Pour in vegetable broth and coconut milk. Once the mixture starts boiling, add eggplant, Chinese green beans, and tomato. Let it cook for 8-10 minutes, or until veggies are tender.

Collage showing pouring coconut milk, then adding in veggies into a Dutch oven.

Lastly, stir in cabbage and cook until 5 minutes or so, until all veggies have softened. Give it a taste, adding more seasonings if needed. Serve and enjoy!

Adding cabbage into pot of curry in a white Dutch oven on a teacloth.

✔Helpful tips

Use a large enough pot to cook your Chinese vegetable curry to prevent soup from boiling over. I am using a 5.5qt Dutch oven.
This curry is only mildly spicy, and is tolerable by most. However, if you are super sensitive to spice, I recommend using 1 tablespoon of curry powder, then adding more from there.
If you like your curry sauce to be thicker, reduce amount of vegetable broth used to around 1 cup.
Leftover vegan Chinese curry can be refrigerated for 3-4 days. Let it cool completely, then transfer it to a sealed container before keeping.

✨Variations

Vegetables - Feel free to use veggies you have on hand to replace vegetables this recipe calls for. Some that will work in curries include carrot, broccoli and cauliflower florets, mushrooms, and baby corn. You can even use 3 cups of frozen veggie mix instead to make this recipe even easier.

However, I would not recommend skipping onion, garlic, or tomato as they provide a great deal of flavor to this dish.

Coconut milk - You can replace it with other plant-based milk, but make sure to use the unsweetened kind.

Protein source - To make this curry even heartier, add in a source of plant-based protein like tofu, tempeh, chunks of seitan, or even chickpeas.

Make it spicier - As mentioned above, this version is pretty mild, so I do recommend adding more curry powder, or a pinch of chili powder/cayenne pepper to dial up the heat for those of you who have a high tolerance to heat. Alternatively, you could add in a few chopped bird eye's chilies.

Oil-free - Use ¼ cup of broth or water to saute the aromatics and spices instead of oil. If the mixture is getting dry, add in more broth, in 1 tablespoon increment.

Bowl containing vegetable curry and rice served with spoon with roti and glass of water beside.

🍽How to serve

Rice - The best thing to serve your curry with, as it perfectly soak up the delicious curry sauce! For a lower carb alternative, use cauliflower or broccoli rice instead.
Noodles - You can serve vegan Chinese curry over some cooked noodles, like soba, ramen, or rice noodles. The other option is to stir the noodles into the curry to make curry noodle soup. But I would recommend doubling the ingredients for aromatics, spices, and liquids so you will have plenty of broth.
Breads - Asian flatbreads like roti, paratha or dosa pairs beautifully with this dish. It is also pretty common to serve it with regular white/brown bread or dinner rolls here in Malaysia!
Chinese mains - You can also choose to go all out and cook a Chinese feast. Some of my favorite include orange tofu, vegan chop suey, and vegetable chow mei fun.

❔Commonly asked questions

What are the differences between Chinese and Indian curries?

Chinese curries are usually more watery and liquidy when compared to Indian curries, as more broth/water and less coconut milk are used. Other than that, the Chinese version includes five-spice powder, a popular Chinese seasoning blend.

Indian curries are oftentimes spicier, while the Chinese ones are milder, making them suitable for those who are sensitive to heat.

Can I freeze it?

I do not recommend freezing this Chinese vegetable curry, as the vegetables, especially eggplants might turn super mushy upon thawing.

If you plan to freeze it, I recommend skipping the eggplant and replacing it with sturdier veggies like carrot, broccoli, or cauliflower instead. Do portion curry out into individual portions so you will only be taking out what you need.

Are curry leaves edible?

Curry leaves are completely edible. However, most people choose to remove them before serving, as they are quite tough and are unpleasant to bite on.