To make your dinner woes easy, here we have curated a list of 7 best light dinner recipes that you can easily prepare at home:

1. Palak Dal Khichdi

Packed with the goodness of spinach (palak) and dal along with flavourful spices, this khichdi recipe is light on the stomach yet high on nutrients and taste. Prepared in less than hour, this light dinner recipe is just what you need to prepare a healthy yet quick dinner after a tiring day at work.

Method 

Soak rice in water for 15 minutes and wash the dal 2 to 3 times in water.Take a pressure cooker and pour oil in it. Once the oil heats, add mustard seeds, cumin, curry leaves, freshly prepared ginger garlic paste and sauté it well.Add finely chopped tomatoes and onion, Add green chilli as per your taste and let it cook. Add turmeric powder, coriander powder and chilli powder to it and sauté it well. Add salt as per your taste.Add the dal and rice with a glass of water. Cook it for 2 minutes and add fresh chopped spinach and lock the pressure cooker. Let it cook for 10 to 12 minutes.After two whistles remove the Palak Khichdi from the pressure cooker and top it up with warm ghee.

Panchratna Dal

A delicious mix of five lentils! Urad, moong, chana, masoor and arhar come together with a host of spices to prepare a flavourful dal that you can serve with rice or roti.

Method 

Mix, pick, rinse several times and soak the lentils in water for 1-2 hours.In a pressure cooker ( or slow cooker ) add the mix of lentils and pour some water, till the water level reaches above the level of lentils. Add salt and turmeric and pressure cook ( or cook it, if using slow cooker) till 3-4 whistles of cooker.If cooking in a pan, let the water reach the boiling point and then simmer on low heat for 30 -40 minutes.Be sure to cover the pan and to stir the dal occasionally. Add some more water if needed.

Meanwhile in a frying pan or kadahi, pour 1 1/2-2 tbsp of ghee or oil and let it heat up. Carefully add a pinch of hing and some cumin seeds.When cumin is brown, add ginger garlic or just ginger paste, saute well, then add onions and saute again till slight brown in colour.Add tomatoes, green chillies, coriander powder and cook well till oil separates out or till tomatoes are cooked well.Now just whisk the dal slightly and pour it in the pan or kadahi ( you can pour the onion- tomato mixture in the cooker if your frying pan cannot accommodate the dal).Mix well, add some water if needed and cook on low flame for atleast 15 minutes or pressure cook it till 3 whistles of cooker.Simmer for 5 more minutes.Adjust the consistency of dal. This dal is supposed to be of creamy consistency.The longer you cook it on low flame , the more creamy texture is obtained.Garnish with coriander leaves.Serve it with rice/ roti.

Low-Calorie Oats Idli

Perfect for the calorie conscious! South Indian cuisine is known to be light and healthy and this oats idli recipe is just the right dish to prepare. Made with carrots, oats, chana and urad dal along with spices and chillies, this soft and delicious idli recipe is packed with vitamins, minerals and proteins.

Method 

On a tawa, dry roast the oats until it turns slightly brown and then powder the oats in a mixer.In a pan, add oil, mustard seeds, urad dal, channa dal and allow the mustard to splutter and the dals to turn golden.To this, add the chopped chillies, coriander and grated carrots.Add the turmeric powder and fry for a minute.Add this seasoning to the powdered oats mixture and add the curd to it to make a batter like that of idli batter's consistency.You can add as much curd to the mixture to achieve the consistency, but do not add water to the batter.Grease the idli steamer plates with oil and pour the batter into each area of the steamer.Steam the idlis for 15 minutes.Note: To know if the idli is cooked, poke an idli with knife and check if the batter does not stick to the knife.Once done remove the idlis and serve with Onion chutney.

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