Vegetarian recipes

Vegetarian food is the daily default in most Pakistani households, not a separate category reserved for special diets — Daal Chawal (lentils with steamed rice) is one of the most-cooked meals in the country, valued for being fast, inexpensive and forgiving of substitution. The technique that defines Pakistani vegetarian cooking is the tarka (or baghaar): a small amount of oil or ghee heated with whole spices, garlic or dried chilli until fragrant, then poured over the finished lentils or vegetables right before serving. It's a finishing step, not a base, which is why it can transform the same pot of daal into a noticeably different dish depending on what goes into the tarka. Beyond daal, vegetarian cooking covers sabzi (spiced vegetable dishes) built on the same onion-tomato-ginger-garlic base as meat curries, just without the meat — which is also why many meat recipes on this site convert easily to a vegetarian version by swapping the standard protein for potatoes, chickpeas or paneer.