Here’s a delicious healthy popular South Asian street food recipe: chana chaat. It can be described as a chickpea yoghurt salad full of different textures. It tastes sweet, tangy, savoury and creamy. A literal flavour party in every mouthful!
I was inspired to make a healthier version of this popular street snack to take to a friend’s dinner party after having this as a dish at one of my favourite Pakistani restaurants in the UK. The restaurant version didn’t contain half as many vegetables and fruit, so this was way more flavourful and delicious. I’m pleased to say that it was really popular with my friends, so much so that they’ve asked me to bring round more the next time I see them.
Lately, I’ve really been into recreating popular restaurant dishes at home, making them healthier and easy to make for family settings. This is a firm favourite for me to make for my weekly family sit down dinners and I’m confident that it will become yours too!
What’s in chana chaat?
- Chickpeas: One of the main ingredient of a chana chaat are chickpeas. To save time, I use canned chickpeas in unsalted water. However, if you want to use dried chickpeas, you’ll need to boil them until they’re thoroughly cooked.
- Potatoes: White potatoes are a must for any chana chaat recipe as it elevates the dish and makes it more filling and hearty. Ratios are included in the recipe below.
- Tomatoes: You can opt for ripe salad tomatoes but if you have ripe cherry tomatoes on hand, absolutely use them for this recipe. The tomatoes bring out a sweetness to the overall dish. You can then reduce the quantity of the sweet tamarind sauce if you want to include more of natural sugars.
- Natural plain yoghurt: To make this dish vegan, you can use vegan yoghurt. I used full fat Greek yoghurt. Irrespective of the type of yoghurt you go for, it’s highly recommended that it is plain in flavour and full fat. The fat in the yoghurt really adds to the creaminess to the dish and you’ll certainly enjoy it more with your family.
- Sev: This is a popular Pakistani/Indian snack, and used for garnishing this dish. It’s the thin golden crunchy topping you can see in the photo above. This is typically found in the South Asian aisle in most large supermarkets and in South Asian stores. If you’re unable to access either of these, fear not, here’s a link to purchasing sev * online on Amazon.
- Pomegranate: This fruit in this dish is not only pretty and colourful to look at, it provides wonderful bursts of sweetness in every mouthful.
- Chaat masala: This is the key spice that makes a chana chaat a chana chaat! It smells strong and fragrant so a little goes a long way. You can also use this for other chaat recipes such as fruit chaat.
- Ground cumin: An aromatic herb, essential like the chaat masala.
- Lemon juice: Essential to add deep flavour to the base of the dish.
- Imli/tamarind chutney: This is the dark drizzled chutney you can see in the photo above. You can buy a store bought version but I recommend making this from scratch. Although it takes the bulk of the time in this recipe, making this from scratch will mean that you control how much salt and sugar goes into this chutney. The best bit is that you can make this chutney and store it in an air tight container for a couple of weeks and use it in a variety of recipes. Here’s an easy, healthier recipe for making Healthier Tamarind Chutney (Imli Chutney).
- Pudina/mint chutney: Another essential chutney to drizzle over the top of your yoghurt. It’s spicy, minty and garlicky. I made this semi-scratch by using this pre-made pudina masala mix * which can simply be mixed into yoghurt. The packs are certainly worth getting as these will feature in many more of my Pakistani/Indian recipes and they’re pretty good in terms of the salt content considering the bang for your buck you get on the flavour front.
Chana Chaat – A Chickpea Yoghurt Salad
A flavourful, healthy chana chaat recipe that can be eaten as a side or a lunch. Each mouthful is flavour party – so good!
Yield: 4 people
Equipment
- 1 Pan
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Knife
- 1 Serving bowl (for presentation)
Materials
Base Ingredients
- 1 can Cooked chickpeas (in water)
- 2 medium White potatoes
- 2 medium Ripe tomatoes (or a handful of ripe cherry tomatoes)
- 2½ tsp Chana chaat
- 2 tsp Ground cumin
- 2 tbsp Lemon juice (bottled or fresh)
Toppings
- 5 tbsp Natural full fat Greek yoghurt/plain vegan yoghurt – or reduce quantity based on your preference
- 1½ tbsp Imli/tamarind chutney – or reduce quantity based on your preference
- 1 tbsp Pudina/mint chutney – or reduce quantity based on your preference
- 1 handful Sev – or reduce quantity based on your preference
- ½ small Pomegranate – or reduce quantity based on your preference
Instructions
- Boil your potatoes until they're soft, remove their skins and cut them into small cubes.
- Add cumin to a pan and lightly toast this for a couple of mins until you can smell the aroma and quickly remove this from the pan to prevent this from burning. Set this aside.
- Drain your chickpeas and set aside.
- Dice your tomatoes into small chunks.
- To a bowl, add your chickpeas, cooked cubed potatoes, tomatoes toasted ground cumin, chaat masala and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly. Then add in 3/4 of your yoghurt and mix thoroughly. Transfer to your serving bowl.
- Prepare your pudina/mint and imli/tamarind chutneys from scratch/semi-scratch or from a jar if ready made.
- Add the remaining yoghurt as a topping to which you'll drizzle the pudina/mint and imli/tamarind chutneys on top. Add the sev and pomegranate. Now enjoy!
*This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links. This is at no extra cost to you.
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