Punjabi Kadhi Pakora is one of the most popular North Indian dishes! Deep fried fritters (pakora) are dunked in a yogurt-based curry made with besan (gram flour) and spices. I have my own shares of kadhi growing up, but this right here is my absolute favorite way of making it. My mom would always use pakoras made with just besan for her kadhi whereas I like using crispy onion pakoras in my kadhi. It’s delicious with some rice either way!
Kadhi is made in different ways in different parts of the country, so there’s no one way to make it. They all use besan though, that’s one thing in common.
The Punjabi version has fritters (pakora) and has more besan, the tangy Gujarati kadhi is thinner, has less besan, no fritters and is also a little sweet. The Sindhi kadhi uses lot of vegetables like cluster beans, okra, potatoes etc.
So, you see there’s no single way to enjoy kadhi. It depends which region of India you are from and the kind of kadhi you grew up eating. We are all partial to the version we grew up eating. Kadhi chawal (kadhi with rice) is a very popular food combo in Delhi, you would often spot street vendors selling plates of kadhi chawal.
Punjabi Kadhi My Way!
Me and my husband Sarvesh grew up eating Punjabi style Kadhi because we grew up in Northern India, so for us kadhi was supposed to have pakoras in it and it was supposed to be flavorful and tangy. The base of this punjabi kadhi is made with 2 main ingredients and they are yogurt & besan.
Kadhi also comes from the word “kaadhna” which means cooking on low heat for long time. So, longer you slow cook the kadhi, the better it tastes! My mom always used methi seeds (fenugreek seeds) to temper her kadhi. Along with fenugreek, I also use cumin seeds.
Here are my top tips for making a Punjabi kadhi that you can’t stop eating!
- Use sour yogurt because kadhi made with sour yogurt tastes better.
- Mustard oil makes a difference, it’s not to say that you can’t cook your kadhi in any other oil but cooking kadhi in mustard oil gives it a unique flavor.
- Seasoning is key to a good kadhi. I like adding lots of ginger and garlic to my kadhi. I also like using onions and cilantro in my pakoras, unlike my mom who just made pakoras with besan.
- The final tadka of ghee takes kadhi to the next level. I like adding Kashmiri red chili powder on it for that beautiful red color.
Enjoy your kadhi with some hot jeera rice!
Start with more water!
When you make kadhi, start with some extra water. The kadhi must simmer for a long time for it to develop flavors and become thick and creamy, and for that you need to start with a lot of water.
In this recipe, I added 1/2 cup besan, 1 &1/2 cups yogurt and 6 cups (1.4 liter) water. That might seem like a lot of water, but you need it so that the kadhi cooks down to the consistency you are looking for. In fact, I added some more water later as well.
Making sure the kadhi doesn’t split!
If you face this problem of kadhi splitting/separating when you cook it, here’s what you need to do:
Use room temperature yogurt: take the yogurt out of the fridge and let it sit for some time at room temperature before you use it.
Whisk the yogurt well before adding to the batter: I usually whisk the room temperature yogurt first and then add besan to it.
Add the salt later: let the kadhi come to a boil and then let it cook on low heat for 15 minutes and then add the salt. Adding salt in the beginning might cause the kadhi to split.
Stir the kadhi continuously until it comes to the first boil: once you add the batter to pan, whisk it continuously, until the kadhi comes to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, you can then lower the heat and let it cook. You don’t need to stir it all the time after that.
This is optional, but if you are really concerned about the yogurt splitting, you may add a bit or cornstarch to the batter. The cornstarch binds the yogurt and prevents it from splitting. I don’t do it though and kadhi remains just fine.
Let’s Make Punjabi Kadhi in My Kitchen!
- Yogurt + besan + spices = base of the kadhi
Make sure to mix the besan and yogurt first so there are no lumps, then add the spices like coriander powder, turmeric, and chili powder. Add lots of water to make a thin, free flowing batter.
- Lots of ginger and garlic goes in the tadka
Using mustard oil for the tadka gives the kadhi a unique flavor and aroma. I like using fenugreek seeds in my tadka and then add lots of fresh ginger and garlic along with onions.
- Pour the kadhi batter next
Once you have poured the kadhi batter into the pot, stir it constantly until it comes to a boil. This helps in preventing kadhi from splitting.
- Add salt at the end
I like to add salt after the kadhi has been cooking for at least 15 minutes, this way the kadhi doesn’t split. After adding the salt, let it simmer for 15 more minutes, so all together I like to cook my kadhi for 30 minutes. You might need to add more water as it simmers for the desired consistency.
- Make pakoras for the kadhi
You can make the pakoras while the kadhi is simmering. I like adding onions, cilantro, and chilies to my kadhi pakoras.
pinch of baking soda in the pakora batter makes the pakoras soft and light.
- Deep fry the pakoras
I like to deep fry the pakoras in hot oil, but you can also air fry them for a less oil alternative. Add them to the kadhi just before serving.
- The final tadka to take your kadhi to next level!
I make the final tadka in ghee and for my kadhi recipe, I like using Kashmiri red chili powder for that bright red color at the top. It adds flavor and color!
Pour tadka over kadhi, garnish with cilantro and enjoy!
Punjabi Kadhi Pakora
Ingredients
For Kadhi
- ½ cup besan, 55 grams , also known as gram flour
- 1&½ cups plain yogurt, 360 grams
- ½ teaspoon red chili powder
- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 6 cups water, 1.4 liters water
- 2 tablespoons oil, I used and recommend mustard oil
- ½ teaspoon methi seeds, fenugreek seeds
- ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
- ¼ teaspoon hing, also known as asafoetida
- 1 small red onion, sliced thin
- 1 green chili, chopped
- 1 tablespoon +1 teaspoon chopped ginger
- 1 tablespoon +1 teaspoon chopped garlic
- 1 & ¼ -1 & ½ teaspoon salt, to taste
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
For the pakora
- 1 cup besan, 110 grams
- 1 cup thinly sliced onion, from 1 large red onion
- 1 green chili, chopped
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ⅛ teaspoon red chili powder
- ½ teaspoon coriander seeds
- ¼ teaspoon ajwain
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons plain yogurt
- ¼ cup+ 1-2 tablespoons water, as needed
- 2 pinch baking soda
- oil, for frying
For Tadka
- 1 & ½ tablespoons ghee, or use oil
- ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
- ajwain, generous pinch
- 2-3 whole dried red chilies
- ½ teaspoon kashmiri red chili powder, for the bright red color (not spicy)
Instructions
Make the kadhi
- To a large bowl, add ½ cup besan (55 grams) and 1& ½ cups yogurt (360 grams). Make sure the yogurt is at room temperature. Whisk until besan and yogurt are well combined.
- Add ½ teaspoon red chili powder, ½ teaspoon turmeric powder and 1 teaspoon coriander powder and whisk until you have a lump free mixture. Add 6 cups water (around 1.4 liters of water) and mix until it's all mixed together. Set aside.
- In a large and deep pan, add 2 tablespoons mustard oil on medium-high heat. You can use any oil but mustard oil gives it a nice flavor.
- Once the oil is hot (make sure oil is heated through else mustard oil gives a raw taste), add ½ teaspoon methi seeds and ½ teaspoon cumin seeds. Let them splutter and then add ¼ teaspoon hing.
- Add 1 red onion (small, sliced) along with 1 green chili (chopped) and cook for 2 minutes. Then add 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon chopped ginger and 1 tablespoon +1 teaspoon chopped garlic and cook for another 1 minute or so until the ginger and garlic start changing color.
- Add the prepared besan-yogurt mixture into the pan. Now with heat on medium-high, stir continuously until the kadhi comes to a boil.Stir continuously until the kadhi comes to a boil, then lower the heat to low-medium and let it cook for around 30 minutes. Keep stirring it in between.
- Add salt (1 & ¼ teaspoon, or to taste) after the kadhi has been cooking for 15 minutes or so. While the kadhi is cooking, make the pakora.
Make the pakora
- To a large bowl, add 1 cup besan (110 grams), along with 1 cup sliced onion, 1 green chili (chopped), ¼ cup cilantro (chopped), ¼ teaspoon turmeric, ⅛ teaspoon red chili powder, ½ teaspoon coriander seeds, ¼ teaspoon ajwain and ½ teaspoon salt.Add 2 tablespoons plain yogurt and mix.
- It should not be very runny but not super thick either. I added around ¼ cup and 2 tablespoons water.
- Add 2 pinch of baking soda and mix the batter for a minute using your hands. This will make the pakoras nice and soft. Meanwhile heat oil (around 2 cups) in a kadai on medium heat to fry the pakoras.
- Once the oil is hot, mix the batter again for a minute using your hands and then start dropping the batter into the hot oil.I take handful of batter using my thumb and four fingers and drop is straight into hot oil, you may use a spoon.
- Let it cook and turn golden brown from one side and then flip and cook the other side. Make sure to cook on medium-low heat so that the pakoras cook nicely from inside too.Cook until pakoras are golden brown from both sides. Drain on a paper towel.
- After 30 minutes or so, kadhi would have considerably thickened and completely cooked. Add 2 tablespoons cilantro. You can little extra water here if kadhi looks too thick to you. Add the pakora and transfer kadhi into a serving pan.
Make the tadka
- Heat 1& ½ tablespoons ghee in a small pan on medium heat. Once ghee is hot, add ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds and generous pinch of ajwain. Add 2-3 dried red chilies (you can break them for extra heat).Once seeds crackle, add ½ teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder and turn off the heat immediately.
- Pour tadka over kadhi, garnish with more cilantro and serve punjabi kadhi pakora with rice!
Video
Notes
- The kadhi thickens as it cools down. So while re-heating you may need to add little water.
- Add the pakoras to the kadhi 10 to 15 minutes before serving it.
- Please read all my tips in the post if you are making punjabi kadhi for the first time, it will help!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I always follow your recipes and they turn out excellent! What really helps is seeing the weight of ingredients instead of just the size of onions or tomatoes, for example. However, in this Kadhi Pakora recipe I don’t see the exact weight of onions , and was wondering if you can please let me know! Thanks so much.
Hi Shilpa, I will do that when I make this recipe again. Thanks for your feedback.
So easy to follow, and very flavorful!
Thanks Twinkle!
best panjabi kadhi recipe ever. I have bookmarked it so i go again and again to only this recipe
Thanks Sukhi, this is my favorite too!
Made ratio of 3. In the recipe said 18 cups of water 1.4l, further down the recipe said 6 cups of water 1.4l
Which is it to the ratio of 3?
the numbers on the right hand side in the recipe card do not change when you do 2x, 3x. it’s a recipe card glitch and we are working to fix it. 1.4 liters is 6 cups water. if you want to 3x this, I would suggest to use less water than 18 cups though. The recipe has been tested as written. And it is possible that results are not same by simply multiplying everything by 3. I would go with maybe 12-13 cups of water and add more as needed.
Thank you for this simple recipe. Came out really well. Just used onion pakoras from our local Indian grocery, so made it a little easier for me. Definitely going to make it again soon!
love the easy hack! glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent recipe! My daughter and I made the kadhi with ease following your instructions step by step. We skipped the pakora part due to time constraints. Kadhi still turned out delicious. Next time we will make with pakoras. Thanks, Manali!
Thanks Vandna, glad you all enjoyed!
I am so sad. I followed it meticulously, I even let the yogurt come to room temp and subbed some of the water with keffir to add some extra sour (and it was going bad) but in the end this tastes of nothing. I’m dousing it with salt. Where did I go wrong? I did have to replace the fenugreek with mustard seeds but that was my only substitution. I even bought most of the stuff from a local Indian grocer. I did cook it for 45 mins cause the liquid was still beyond soupy and did not thicken. I eventually mixed a tsp of corn startch with with khadi liquid as a slurry because it felt like it was never going to thicken. Did I just give up to early? I feel like I just wasted a bunch of money and now have ingredients I’m afraid to use again.
The pakoras taste good, but also lacking flavor due to the khadi tasting of nothing. 🙁
Rating 5 cause I know this was probably user error since I’ve cooked only a few Indian dishes but I had this at a spot while on vacation and loved it.
Hi Kim, sorry it didn’t work. I honestly have no idea why if you followed the recipe to the T. This recipe has more than 100+ five star reviews, plus I make it all the time so I am very confident of this recipe. Not sure what went wrong. Besan will always thicken when cooked, it’s the characteristic of besan, (nothing to do with my recipe) to thicken so I am even more surprised that besan did not thicken after cooking for 45 minutes! Did you really use besan for this kadhi? Sorry your ingredients were spoiled, never a good feeling. But just substituting fenugreek seeds with mustard will not cause this. Something else has gone wrong here and I can’t say what from here unfortunately.
Oh thank you for such a quick reply!!! Again I believe you, even just looking at the comments I know this is a great recipe. I am starting to think that its something so assumed in Indian cookery that I (USA southern gal) am just missing. I’ve gotten really good in my Thai cuisine and am just starting on my Indian journey. I just feel like there is something “basic” that I’m missing. Your malai kofta is something I’ve cooked way to many times this month and its absolutely amazing. I cooked the Khadi again tonight and doubled all the spices and its still pretty tasteless. Could it be I’m not blooming them long enough in the oil at the beginning? Is there a dish with besan as a thickener that could be rated “easier” than this one? Thank you for your time! All your posts are so wonderfully written.
besan always thickens when cooked, you don’t have to do anything special for that. People even make tofu with it, just google “burmese tofu”, just because it’s the characteristic of besan to thicken as you cook that it thickens so much eventually that you can cut it into pieces and make tofu. You can try my besan halwa but it’s a dessert “https://www.cookwithmanali.com/besan-halwa/. hopefully you can make it work. Can you send me a picture of your besan, my email address is manali @ cook with manali dot com.
Best recipe for authentic punjabi kadhi. Thank you
Thanks for trying Rabia, glad you enjoyed!
I made this today it tasted just like how my grandma used to make it. I just had to add a couple of more cups of water and I added potatoes cubes as an extra. Loved it!
Thanks
yum! love the addition of potatoes. Glad you enjoyed it Sabdy!
Just tried this recipe, it was SOOOO GOOD. the consistency of the kadhi, the flavours were balanced. really good.
glad you enjoyed it Kavitha!
Hi Manali,
I made this Kadhi Pakoda today and I have to say this was the best Kadhi I have ever made. The real of Besan: Yogurt: Water were just right!
The only thing I did differently was to add some garam masala.. It was sooooo yummy! Thank you for a wonderful recipe.
Best,
Aparna
Thanks Aparna, glad you enjoyed it!
HI Manali, I absolutely love your recipes and follow them to the heart. I do have a question, Can I make the Kadhi a night before and add pakoras to it the morning of the party? I won’t have enough time to cook it the day of my gathering. will that change the taste?
Hi Sunayna, you can definitely make kadhi in advance. It will just thicken up a lot in the fridge since there’s besan. So make it before and then re-heat in a pan and you will have to add more water to dilute it. Also taste test add some seasonings accordingly while re-heating. Add the pakoras in the morning. Hope it works out well! 🙂
Hi Manali,
Can you help with which cup to use for measuring the besan and yoghurt.
It is confusing as I am a beginner.
Thanks
Hi! I use a US standard size cup where 1 cup = 240 ml/8 oz
I’m in the UK and our 1 Cup is different to yours, how should I adjust the ingredients to that or maybe it might be easier if I just go as per 240ml which you use in USA?
Also do you think it will taste fine without fenugreek seeds?
yes go with 240 ml for 1 cup, yes it will still be good without fenugreek seeds
This was a terrific dish to make and came out delicious.
glad you enjoyed it Indu!
Delish! Thank you for sharing the steps and great tips. Turns out so good. Love your easy quick recipes!
I have tried it twice now and it’s always yum. I wish I could post photo here