Punjabi Kadhi Pakora (Stovetop and Instant Pot)

Punjabi kadhi pakora is the perfect vegetarian comfort food from North India. Chickpea flour fritters (pakoras) are dipped in a thick and tangy yogurt sauce (kadhi), and the kadhi is served with white Basmati rice for a complete meal called kadhi chawal (rice). Both stovetop and instant pot recipes included!

When it comes to comfort foods from North India, nothing can beat recipes like sarson ka saag and makki ki roti, rajma chawal, dal makhani, and of course, kadhi chawal (kadhi served with rice). These are hearty and rustic Punjabi dishes that will appeal to anyone with a sense of adventure.

I am not from Punjab (an Indian state where people thrive on dishes made with real butter, ghee, paneer and yogurt), but I adore the food. Sort of inevitable after having spent my teenage years in New Delhi, a city where the food scene has a rather strong Punjabi influence.

Anyway, making something like Punjabi kadhi is not the big deal I thought it was back then. It's an easy recipe with three broad steps:

• Fry the fritters (pakoras)
• Make the sauce (kadhi)
• Temper the kadhi pakora

And, of course, with the instant pot, this recipe becomes SO much easier and simpler. Pressure cooking the kadhi takes away the need to watch the sauce or stir it. Just whisk all the ingredients, set your instant pot, and walk away. When you open it, the kadhi is ready, and all you have to do is dunk the fritters in them!

Ingredients

Note: exact amounts are mentioned in the recipe card further down.

Ingredient Notes

• Most of these ingredients are easily available in Indian grocery stores or even the international aisles of supermarkets like Walmart.
• The ginger and garlic paste can be made at home in a snap. Put equal quantities of peeled and chopped ginger and garlic in a blender with a few tablespoons water. Blend to a smooth puree and store in a glass jar with a lid. Keeps in the fridge for a few weeks.
• Mustard oil is wonderfully spicy and flavourful and once you've had a taste, every other oil will seem bland in comparison. If you decide to use it, you will need to smoke it first to get rid of the sharp, raw taste. That being said, it is not absolutely essential. You can make your kadhi with any neutral oil too with perfectly good results.

Smoking the mustard oil for cooking

Pour the oil in a metal saucepan or frypan and heat it until it reaches smoking point. When it starts giving off fumes and changes its colour to a very pale yellow, it's done. Turn off the heat and allow the oil to cool down before using it.

You will want to switch on the exhaust fan in your kitchen and open a few windows to get rid of the fumes after you're done smoking the oil.

Stovetop instructions

Time needed: 1 hour

1. Make the vegetable pakoras or fritters

• Take the chickpea flour in a large bowl and add chilli powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder, sea salt and baking powder. Add a few of tablespoons water gradually and whisk to form a thick batter.
• Divide this batter into two bowls. Mix in the chopped onions in one part and cauliflower florets in the other.
• Heat oil in a skillet or karahi (Indian wok) and drop teaspoonfuls of batter in the oil. Fry over a medium heat until golden. Remove from the hot oil and set aside.

2. Make the sauce

• Tip in the chickpea flour, ground spices (chilli powder, turmeric, coriander) and salt in a bowl.
• Add the yogurt and mix with a wire whisk to make a smooth paste. Add the water and whisk again slightly.

3. Cook the sauce to make kadhi

• Now, heat the mustard oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and add the ginger garlic paste. Add ¼ cup water and fry the paste until cooked (3 minutes).
• Add the yogurt mixture you prepared earlier and increase the heat to high. Cook until the mixture comes to a boil. Stir continuously in a circular motion with a wooden spoon.
• Lower the heat and cook, uncovered for 30 minutes. Stir frequently to make sure the sauce doesn't stick to the bottom. When the liquid thickens and becomes smooth, the kadhi is cooked.

4. Add the pakoras to the kadhi

• Add the fritters to the kadhi and cook for a couple of minutes so that they absorb some of the sauce.
• Pour the kadhi in a deep serving dish.

5. Add the tadka (tempering)

• Heat the vegetable oil in a small frypan and add the mustard and cumin seeds.
• When the seeds start popping, add the dry red chillies.
• Pour this spice-infused oil carefully over the kadhi and serve hot with steamed rice.

Instant pot instructions

1. Make the pakoras or vegetable fritters exactly as in the stovetop recipe.
2. Make the sauce exactly as in the stovetop recipe.
3. To make the kadhi in the instant pot, select the sauté function (normal) and add the mustard oil to the steel insert. Once the oil heats up, add the ginger and garlic paste. Add ¼ cup water and stir for 3 minutes until the paste is cooked.
4. Add the sauce you prepared in step 2 of stovetop and mix everything with a large spoon. Pressure cook for 15 minutes, followed by a natural release (approximately another 15 minutes). Open the pot, and if you feel that the kadhi is thicker than you want, add some water to thin it out. Cook through for a couple of minutes on sauté again.
5. Add the pakoras to the kadhi. They will soften and absorb the sauce pretty quickly.
6. Finally, prepare the tempering exactly as in step 5 of stovetop and you're done. Serve the kadhi with some freshly made Basmati rice.

Top tips

1. Use plain yogurt for making kadhi. Do NOT use flavored or sweetened yogurt.
2. Ideally, the yogurt should be slightly sour for best results. Yogurt sitting in the fridge for a few days is usually sour. Use this yogurt, not the fresh one you got from the supermarket today. Or add a little lemon juice at the end to the kadhi.
3. While making the batter for the pakoras, don't add too much water, too suddenly. The aim is to make a thick batter so that the pakoras turn out round and plump.
4. Fry the pakoras in medium-hot oil to cook them well from inside. If the oil is smoking hot, the pakoras will brown on the outside quickly but remain under-cooked inside.
5. Stir constantly while bringing the sauce to a boil on the stovetop. This is the secret to a smooth sauce. If you don't do this properly, the chickpea flour in the yogurt will form lumps, or worse, the yogurt itself will curdle. Not very appealing. To avoid this, keep stirring! This is, of course, not required when you use your instant pot to make the kadhi.
6. Leftover kadhi can become quite thick when kept in the fridge. While reheating, simply add a little water and cook for a few minutes. It will become smooth again.

Variations

Kadhi tastes quite nice with vegetable pakoras, but sometimes, you can also make plain pakoras without any veggies in them. The steps for making the pakoras remain the same except that you don't add the onion and cauliflower. All you do is make a batter with the chickpea flour, powdered spices, sea salt, baking powder, and water. To make the pakoras, take spoonfuls of the batter and drop them in hot oil as usual.

Two tips to remember if you are making plain chickpea flour (besan) pakoras:

1. You will need more besan, around 3 cups to compensate for the lack of veggies.
2. Sometimes the plain pakoras are not as soft as the vegetable ones, so you might have to soak them in hot water for 10-15 minutes before adding them to the kadhi. Squeeze out the excess water and then put them in the kadhi. It's a fail-proof trick to getting soft pakoras!

Serving suggestions

• Kadhi tastes best with steamed Basmati rice. This is a very popular combination called kadhi chawal.
• However, you can have kadhi with Indian breads like roti or chapati also. Who's to say you can't, after all?

More vegetarian rice recipes

📖 Recipe

Punjabi Kadhi Pakora

Saima Zaidi

Punjabi kadhi pakora is the perfect vegetarian comfort food from North India. Chickpea flour fritters (pakoras) are dipped in a thick and tangy yogurt sauce (kadhi), and the kadhi is served with white Basmati rice for a complete meal called kadhi chawal (rice).

4.34 from 3 votes

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Prep Time 20 mins

Cook Time 40 mins

Total Time 1 hr

Course Dinner

Cuisine Indian

Servings 6

Calories 392 kcal

Equipment

• Medium-sized Pyrex bowl
• Wire whisk or fork
• Frypan or wok for frying the pakoras
• Large saucepan or Instant Pot
• Small frypan for tempering

Ingredients

 

US CustomaryMetric

 

1x2x3x

Fritters or pakoras

• 1 cup chickpea flour besan
• 1 teaspoon red chilli powder
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
• ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 cup red onion chopped or sliced
• 1 cup cauliflower florets
• water as needed
• vegetable oil as needed for frying

Kadhi

• 1 ½ cups chickpea flour besan
• 1 teaspoon red chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 tablespoon coriander powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 cups yogurt
• 6 cups water
• ¼ cup mustard oil smoked
• 2 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste

Tempering

• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
• ½ tsp cumin seeds
• 4 dried red chillies

Instructions

 

Fry the pakoras

• Take the chickpea flour in a large bowl and add chilli powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder, sea salt and baking powder. Add a few of tablespoons water gradually and whisk to form a thick batter.
• Divide this batter into two bowls. Add the chopped onions to one part and cauliflower florets to the other. Make sure the vegetables are well coated with the batter.
• Heat oil in a skillet or karahi (Indian wok) and drop teaspoonfuls of batter in the oil. Fry over a medium heat until golden. Remove from the hot oil and set aside.

Make the sauce

• Tip in the chickpea flour, ground spices (chilli powder, turmeric, coriander) and salt in a bowl. Add the yogurt and mix with a wire whisk to make a smooth paste. Add the water and whisk again slightly.

Cook the sauce to make the kadhi

• Heat the mustard oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and add the ginger garlic paste. Add ¼ cup water and fry the paste until cooked (3 minutes).
• Add the yogurt mixture you prepared earlier and increase the heat to high. Cook until the mixture comes to a boil. Stir continuously in a circular motion with a wooden spoon.
• Lower the heat and cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Stir frequently to make sure the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom. When the liquid thickens and becomes a smooth sauce, the kadhi is cooked.

Add the pakoras to the kadhi

• Add the pakoras or fritters to the kadhi and cook for a couple of minutes on low heat so that the fritters absorb some of the sauce. Pour the kadhi in a deep serving dish.

Add the tempering (tadka)

• Heat the vegetable oil in a small frypan and add the mustard and cumin seeds. When the seeds start popping, add the dried red chillies. Pour this spice-infused oil carefully over the kadhi and serve hot with steamed rice.

Instant pot method

• Make the pakoras exactly as explained in the stovetop recipe.
• Make the sauce exactly as explained in the stovetop recipe.
• Select the sauté function (normal) on your instant pot and add the mustard oil to the steel insert. Once the oil heats up, add the ginger and garlic paste. Add ¼ cup water and stir for 3 minutes until the paste is cooked. Cancel sauté.
• Add the sauce you prepared earlier and mix everything with a large spoon. Secure the lid and make sure the steam release vent is sealed. Press the pressure cook button (high) and set the timer for 15 minutes. When the timer beeps, do a natural release (approximately another 15 minutes). Open the pot, and if you feel that the kadhi is thicker than you want, add some water to thin it out. Cook through for a couple of minutes on sauté again.
• Add the pakoras to the kadhi. They will soften and absorb the sauce pretty quickly.
• Finally, prepare the tempering exactly as explained in the stovetop recipe, and you're done. Serve the kadhi with some freshly cooked Basmati rice.

Notes

1. The batter for making the pakoras should be thick so that the pakoras turn out round and plump. 
2. Fry the pakoras in medium-hot oil to cook them well from inside.
3. See the subheading 'Variations' in the body of the post if you want to make plain besan pakoras without any vegetables. 
4. Use plain yogurt for making kadhi. Do NOT use flavored or sweetened yogurt.  
5. Ideally, the yogurt should be slightly sour. 
6. Stir the sauce constantly while cooking it on the stovetop.
7. Leftover kadhi can become quite thick when kept in the fridge. While reheating, simply add a little water and cook for a few minutes. It will become smooth again.

Nutrition

Calories: 392kcalCarbohydrates: 38gProtein: 15gFat: 20gSaturated Fat: 4gPolyunsaturated Fat: 6gMonounsaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 11mgSodium: 718mgPotassium: 689mgFiber: 7gSugar: 11gVitamin A: 392IUVitamin C: 11mgCalcium: 171mgIron: 3mg

Keyword karhi pakora, punjabi kadhi

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