Kabuli chana recipes: salads, khichdi, laddu and tikki

Six of the seven recipes on this page start from the same base: whole kabuli chana soaked for 8 to 12 hours (the quick version takes 2 hours in hot water), the soaking water poured away, and a pressure cook until soft enough to squash. The ICMR-NIN guidelines place the soak on their list of household methods for easier digestion of legumes, so it earns its hours. Quantities, the quick soak and the doneness cues are gathered in our guide to soaking kabuli chana. Each recipe below repeats only what changes, the cook time, the masala, the shape, and takes this soak as already done; only the laddu skips the soak, dry-roasting the rinsed chana straight in the pan.

The two lunch anchors: a rich curry for the slow day, a one-pot plate for the fast one.

Punjabi chole pressure cooks chana soaked for 8 hours or overnight with a tea knot for colour, then simmers them in an onion-tomato-ginger-garlic masala with home-ground chole masala and amchur. Ten minutes of prep and 65 minutes of cooking serve four at 297 kcal a serving. The tea knot is optional and only there for colour.

Kabuli chana khichdi cooks the soaked chana with sona masoori rice and turmeric, finished with a tempering of ghee, cumin and hing, into one soft pot. Fifteen minutes of prep and 20 minutes of cooking make four bowls at 251 kcal each. Both cook from the same soaked grain, so a single soak covers either lunch.

The snack shelf of chana: one cold plate, two pan-fried patties and a dip, all four portioned out for a crowd or a row of lunchboxes.

Kabuli chana salad tosses boiled chana together with onion, tomato, cucumber and coriander, dressed in lemon and cumin, with a yogurt version in the recipe. Ten minutes of prep and 35 minutes of cooking make four bowls at 222 kcal each.

Kabuli chana tikki mashes boiled chana with onion, ginger and spices, binds the mix with besan and pan fries ten crisp patties. Fifteen minutes of prep and 38 minutes of cooking, and two tikkis come to 245 kcal. The recipe also carries air-fryer timings for the same patties, so the snack survives an oil-light kitchen.

Hummus blends soft-boiled kabuli chana with sesame tahini, lemon and garlic into the creamy dip, with the chickpea-to-tahini ratio in the recipe. Twenty minutes of prep and 35 minutes of cooking make six bowls at 189 kcal each.

Falafel grinds chana soaked 8 to 12 hours, still raw, with onion, garlic and herbs, and shallow fries twelve patties; no canned chickpeas, no deep fryer. Twenty minutes of prep and 25 minutes of cooking, and two falafel come to 255 kcal.

The sweet end of the same grain.

Kabuli chana laddu roasts the chana crisp, grinds it with jaggery powder and ghee and rolls sixteen soft laddus, with a no-jaggery swap in the recipe. Thirty-two minutes of prep and 20 minutes of cooking, and two laddus come to 185 kcal. The recipe makes the whole batch in about 50 minutes and stores the laddus in an airtight container. Two of them carry 5.3 g of protein along with those calories.

A week from one bag runs on a shared boil. Cook a big pot of chana on the weekend, soaked 8 to 12 hours and pressure cooked soft, and it splits four ways: the khichdi warm the first evening, the salad cold the next, and the tikki and hummus on the second day, before the pot crosses the two days cooked chana keeps in the fridge. The falafel starts from soaked raw chana the day it is fried, and the laddu is the sweet for the week. Chole and khichdi each serve four, so one cook feeds a family twice; the snacks portion out in twos and sixes as the calories above assume. The whole week works out to one bag of the dry grain: one soak-and-boil for the weekend pot, and a soak of its own for the falafel.

All seven recipes assume whole, unpolished grain, and COWBERRY's kabuli chana fits the bill: bold, creamy white chickpeas from Himachal Pradesh and Central India, grown with cow-based methods and packed unpolished; the product card below has the details. Keep the dry grain in an airtight jar in a cool, dry place, where it holds for many months. Buying, storage and the numbers behind the grain are on the kabuli chana hub.

Difference between kabuli chana and chole?

Chole is the dish; kabuli chana is the pulse it is made from. The Punjabi chole recipe soaks the chana for 8 hours or overnight and pressure cooks them before the masala, and serves four.

Can chickpeas be boiled without soaking?

They can, but six of the seven recipes above soak first, and the ICMR-NIN guidelines put the soak among their household methods for easier digestion of legumes. Whole kabuli chana is soaked for 8 to 12 hours, or 2 hours in hot water for the quick route; the steps sit in our guide to soaking kabuli chana.

Does kabuli chana have protein?

Yes: 20.5 g per 100 g of the dry grain, and the seven recipes above all build on it, from the chole pot to the laddu. A 2012 review of chickpea says its protein is short only in the sulphur-containing amino acids, and that cereals in the daily diet can make up the difference. The full per-100 g breakdown is on our kabuli chana nutrition page.

What is kabuli chana?

Kabuli chana is the white chickpea, the larger and cream-coloured type of Cicer arietinum, the one soaked and cooked into the chole, salad, hummus and falafel dishes above. The hub page linked in the intro holds the buying notes, and the grain's full per-100 g numbers sit on the kabuli chana nutrition page.