Chana Dal Vada is a famous street food of South India. Chana Dal Vada is often preferred as an evening snack as well. The way the dal is soaked in water for a few hours for the recipe of Ram Ladoo, in the same way, for making Chana Dal Vada, the Chana Dal is soaked in water for a few hours before being used for making Vada. It is kept soaked for at least 3 hours.
Chana Dal Vada is a very simple recipe in which the main ingredient is Chana Dal along with some spices and good aroma using ginger, garlic, fenugreek, mint or curry leaves etc. as per your choice.
Chana Dal Vada is served with coconut chutney as a snack and street food in South India. Coconut chutney can be made in different ways. By the way, the taste of coconut chutney made from fresh coconut is different, but if for some reason fresh coconut is not available, then dry coconut can be used as well. Keep dry coconut soaked in water for 15 minutes and then it can be used to make chutney which goes well with Chana Dal Vada. Apart from this, dry coconut powder can also be used to make Coconut chutney.
Chana dal is often used as a tempering agent in making South Indian chutneys, subzis and curries. You can follow this recipe to make Chana Dal Vada in a very easy way.
Ingredients for Chana Dal Vada Recipe
- Chana Dal: 1/2 cup
- Onion: 1 medium
- Ginger: 1/2 inch piece
- Garlic: 2 – 3 cloves
- Green chilies : 2 – 3
- Asafoetida: 2 pinches (if garlic is not used)
- salt as per taste
- Curry leaves: 5 – 7
- Cumin: 1 teaspoon
- Coriander: 2 teaspoons
- Oil for frying the chana dal vada
Steps for Chana Dal Vada Recipe
Soak Chana Dal for Chana Dal Vada Recipe
First of all, wash the chana dal thoroughly and soak it for at least 3 hours. Before using any pulse/lentils in food, it is necessary to keep it soaked in water . It makes the digestion of pulse easy. Unsoaked pulses are not good for the body and therefore pulses should always be soaked for 3 hours before use. Preferably soak the dal for 6 hours before using it.
Make Mixture for Chana Dal Vada Recipe
When chana dal swells after soaking (after 3 hours), then drain the water and start the process of making vada from chana dal.
For this, add soaked chana dal along with ginger, garlic, green chillies, curry leaves cut into small pieces in a jar of mixer/grinder. Simultaneously add cumin, coriander, salt as per taste. No water is needed to grind the pulses.
Grind it once. If there is a lot of need, then add 1-2 spoons of water to it, but more water than this should not be added. To make chana dal vada, we have to keep the paste coarse.
Now as you can see in this picture, chana dal has been kept coarse, in this you can also see some grains of whole chana dal. Now this chana dal and spices mixture is ready, take it out in a vessel.
The mixture of chana dal should be such that you can make laddoos out of it. If you find the mixture too thick then add one spoon of water to it and if the mixture seems a bit thin then add gram flour or rice flour to thicken it.
Now add chopped onion to this mixture. If you want, you can also grind the onions along with the chana dal in a mixer. Here onions are added to the mix later. This gives crunch to Chana Dal Vada.
Fry Chana Dal Vada
Now put the oil in a heavy pan for heating. We have to heat the oil on medium. The vada should be cooked on a medium flame and should be fried till it turns golden in colour. If you do not want to deep fry chana dal vada, then you can shallow fry it in a frying pan or in an air fryer.
When the Chana Dal Vada turns golden brown in color, take it out from the oil and repeat the same for the remaining mixture.
Now this chana dal vada is completely ready. Serve it with chutney or sauce of your choice.
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