Chana dal recipes by meal: breakfast, lunch and a laddu

Five of the six dishes on this page start with the same step, and the sixth needs none of it. Split chana dal soaks for one hour in room-temperature water as the standard: thirty minutes in just-boiled water when the clock is short, and 6 to 8 hours in cool water overnight when the dal joins the morning plan. Soaked dal pressure cooks in 3 to 4 whistles on medium, with the grains staying whole — the texture the fry and the khichdi below are built on. All three soaks, with their timings, live on the how to soak chana dal page.

What the dal is, how it stores and how to buy it is on the chana dal guide.

Chana dal roti is the Karnataka one: soaked dal ground coarse, kneaded with atta, onion and green chilli, and rolled into eight rotis, each from 25 g of chana dal and 15 g of atta. One roti comes to about 164 kcal; an hour for the soak, then about 45 minutes of kneading, rolling and roasting.

Chana dal upma grinds the soaked dal coarse and steams it like rava, with a mustard seed tempering and vegetables; no fermenting, one pot, soft separate grains. A bowl (50 g of the dry chana dal) is about 236 kcal with 11 g of protein, ready about 35 minutes after the soak.

Dal pakwan is the Sindhi Sunday breakfast: creamy pressure-cooked dal finished with a ghee, cumin and whole red chilli tempering, and crisp fried pakwan to scoop it with, plus a bake-not-fry option. A full plate, six pakwan with a quarter of the dal, is about 561 kcal; count about two hours with the soak.

Chana dal fry is the everyday dal: soaked dal pressure cooked until soft but whole, folded into an onion-tomato masala and finished with a ghee, cumin and hing tadka. A serving works out to about 238 kcal and 11 g of protein; allow 35 minutes at the stove once the dal has soaked.

Chana dal khichdi is the one-pot lunch: rice and the dal pressure cooked together over a ghee, cumin and hing tempering, the dal staying whole for a grainier khichdi than the moong kind. A bowl is about 286 kcal with 8.5 g of protein; about 35 minutes with the pressure drop after an hour's soak.

Chana dal laddu dry-roasts the split dal golden, grinds it to flour and binds it with jaggery powder and ghee, no syrup to boil. Sixteen laddus in about half an hour of work, each about 31 g and 148 kcal, and they keep for about two weeks in an airtight container.

For a puran filling without a page of its own: pressure cook one cup of soaked chana dal until soft, mash it smooth, and stir it with jaggery and cardamom over a low flame until the mix thickens and leaves the sides of the pan. Spread it inside rolled-out wheat dough, fold and roast on the tawa for a simple puran poli.

The one snack worth the two lines: for a chana dal vada, soak one cup of the dal for an hour, grind it coarse with ginger and green chilli, and fold in chopped onion, coriander and salt; drop small handfuls into hot oil and fry until golden. Serve with coconut chutney.

Cooked dal also stretches into a quick soup — thin it with water, simmer, and finish with lemon — and the whole form of the same seed, kala chana, soaks for 6 to 8 hours and boils into a snack of its own.

One bag of dal and a week of meals: the upma (about 35 minutes after the soak) and the rotis (about 45 minutes of work) are the weekday breakfasts, and dal pakwan is the slow one, at about two hours with the soak, for a weekend. Lunch alternates the 35-minute fry with the 35-minute khichdi, and the laddu is the half-hour sweet for the day you want one.

On figures: the upma, fry and khichdi sit between about 236 and 286 kcal a bowl, the rotis come to about 164 kcal each, the fried pakwan plate at about 561 kcal is the feast, and the laddu at about 148 kcal is a sweet, with one as the portion. Cooked dal dishes keep up to two days in the fridge; the laddu keeps about two weeks airtight.

The nutrient side of the same dal is on the bengal gram benefits page.

Can chana dal be soaked overnight?

Yes: 6 to 8 hours in cool water is the overnight soak, and in hot weather the bowl goes in the fridge. It gives the softest, quickest morning cook and works for every soaked dish on this page. For the same day, one hour at room temperature, or thirty minutes in just-boiled water, is the standard.

Can chana dal be cooked without soaking?

Yes, the split dal will cook unsoaked with more water and more pot time, at a small cost in evenness. The soaked dishes on this page ask for the hour's soak because their texture depends on even cooking, so if you skip it, rinse the dal, add extra water and check for softness.

Does chana dal have protein?

Yes: 21.55 g per 100 g of the dry dal (IFCT 2017), and the dishes on this page carry it into the plate — about 11 g of protein in a bowl of the upma or a serving of the fry, 8.5 g in a bowl of the khichdi and 17.3 g in a plate of dal pakwan.

Is chana dal good for weight loss?

The everyday dishes on this page can be, when the dal takes the place of some rice or roti instead of joining a full plate: a bowl of the khichdi is about 286 kcal and a bowl of the upma about 236 kcal, against about 561 kcal for the fried pakwan plate. The portion logic and the trials live on the chana dal for weight loss guide.

What is bengal gram?

Bengal gram is what IFCT 2017 calls the desi chickpea, and chana dal is that seed split and husked — the dal every recipe on this page uses. Left whole, it is kala chana; ground, it becomes besan.

Can chana dal cause gas?

Yes, in some people. The sugars in the dal ferment in the colon and give off gas, though recent work questions whether they are the primary source. Most people stop feeling it within a few weeks of regular eating; a smaller first helping is the easy start.