Dahi Vada Recipe

You will love this recipe of Dahi Vada/Dahi Bhalla/Thayir Vadai! This delicious Indian snack is made with yogurt, fried lentil fritters and sweet and savory toppings.

Course Snack

Cuisine Indian

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 20

Soaking time 8

Servings glasses

Calories 198.27kcal

Author Priya Lakshminarayan

Equipment

Frying pan

Ingredients

To make the vadas

½ cup urad dal
⅓ cup moong dal
⅓ cup green moong dal
3 green chillies
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
½ cup water
salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon hot oil
oil for frying

To prep the dahi

3 cups yogurt
salt
2 tablespoon powdered sugar
4 teaspoon cumin powder
4 teaspoon chilly powder
¼ cup cilantro

For garnish

Instructions

To make the vadas

Wash and then soak urad dal, yellow moong dal and green gram split moong dal for 8 hours or even overnight.
Drain and transfer to a blender jar. Also add broken green chillies. Then add ginger paste, salt, coriander powder and cumin powder.
Grind to make a smooth and thick batter by gradually adding cold water. It should not be grainy in texture but smooth.
Transfer the batter to a bowl. Add baking soda and hot oil. Whisk the batter till it's light and fluffy to aerate. The vada batter is now ready.
Add oil to a frying pan. Keep the flame on medium. To check if its hot enough, add a small pea-size batter to the oil. If it immediately floats up to the top, that means the oil is very hot, lower the flame. If it sinks to the bottom, then it means oil is not hot enough. The right temperature would be when the ball takes a couple of seconds to float up.
Using a small spoon or tablespoon, drop the balls in oil. Fry them on medium flame till they evenly turn golden brown. Keep tossing them in oil to cook evenly. Fry them in batches. Do not overcrowd.
Transfer the balls in warm (not hot or room temperature) water immediately. It should float. Leave them in water till they become bigger, turn soft and fluff up or leave it for 15-20 minutes.
Squeeze out the excess water from them using your palm. Press gently so that they don't loose their shape and break. Transfer to a plate for now.

To prep the dahi

In another bowl, add yogurt. Whisk it till smooth and creamy. Add salt and sugar to the bowl.
Also add chilly powder, chopped cilantro, and cumin powder to the bowl. Whisk it all together. You can chill this Indian yogurt mixture till it's time to serve or add the squeezed out vadas to this bowl, mix and chill it in the fridge.

To assemble

To serve in individual glasses or jars, smear the sides of the glasses with sweet chutney and green chutney.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of yogurt mixture into the glass.
Stuff the glass with 2-3 vadas in each glass.
Fill it with the spiced yogurt. Be generous here. Top it with sweet chutney.
Sprinkle sev, chilly powder and cumin powder on top.

Notes

There are many variations to the thayir vadai batter recipe. You can make them with just urad dal, moong dal, or a mix of urad and yellow moong dal instead of three different lentils.

Some soak the fried vadas in buttermilk instead of water. You can try that too. Dip the spoon in water and then use it to drop the batter in hot oil when frying. The batter will not slide off easily.

Nutrition