Sattu (roasted gram flour): names, nutrition, benefits and how to use

Sattu is roasted gram flour: Bengal gram, the chickpea of Cicer arietinum, goes into the pan and comes out toasted, and only then is it ground. The FSSAI standard for chana sattu says the same in regulatory words — sound gram, washed and dried before the roast, nothing extraneous in the bag, no adulterant — so sattu contains a single ingredient, the roasted gram itself. The order of the two steps decides the flour: grind dehusked gram raw and you have besan, the flour that still needs cooking; roast the gram first and you have sattu, which is used as it comes. Sattu is not a dal, and it is not besan; the names section below covers what each is called. The full method, with home timings, is on how is sattu made.

IFCT 2017's local-names list holds no sattu entry, so each of the four names below is footnoted to the Wikipedia article on sattu: the article's English wording is toasted gram flour, and the FSSAI standard titles the same flour roasted Bengal gram flour (chana sattu); Hindi writes sattu, Punjabi satui and Odia chhatua. Sattu atta and sattu ka atta join sattu with atta, the Hindi word for flour, so they name the same roasted gram flour. The same article notes the flour is also prepared from roasted barley or from a grain mix; this hub sticks to the gram kind. The names, and the foods sattu is often confused with, are set out on sattu in english.

Source: no source found. — means no name recorded in the source.

English ‘Toasted gram flour’: Wikipedia: Sattu. Hindi ‘Sattu’: Wikipedia: Sattu. Punjabi ‘Satui’: Wikipedia: Sattu. Odia ‘Chhatua’: Wikipedia: Sattu.

Sattu's nutrition questions deserve the honest opening: neither of the two big composition tables carries the roasted flour — the Indian tables print no sattu row and the USDA's FoodData Central has no roasted chickpea flour record — so no per-100 g energy, protein, fat or fibre figures exist to quote. The single printed number is the protein floor the FSSAI standard fixes for chana sattu: crude protein, counted as N x 6.25, not below 20 percent on the dry basis, which means each 100 g of the dry flour carries at least 20 g of protein, with moisture held at 8 percent or under and crude fibre at 3 percent or under. In servings the floor does simple work: a 50 g measure of the dry flour holds at least 10 g of protein, the drink recipe's 60 g holds at least 12 g, and each of its four 250 ml glasses carries about 3 g. None of those serving figures is a calorie count; energy for sattu stays unpublished. The table below shows the two published neighbours, chana dal from IFCT 2017 and besan from the USDA record; neither column is sattu, and their numbers are not to be borrowed onto the flour. The fuller picture, including the glycemic index gap, is on sattu protein per 100g.

Per 100 g raw, edible portion. Composition: IFCT 2017 (ICMR-NIN); USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy), FDC ID 174288, NDB 16157. GI: University of Sydney GI database. — means not reported. These are average values for the food; the label on a pack gives the values for that product.

The benefits sit on the same honest base: a floor of 20 percent protein on the dry basis, and a gram family whose protein quality a 2012 review judges better than other pulses'. The guidelines supply the pairing arithmetic: three measures of cereal to one of pulse by raw weight covers the complete set of essential amino acids, pulses bringing lysine and cereals the sulphur-containing pair, with 250 ml of milk a day lifting the protein further — the slot where sattu in a wheat dough or beside roti and rice fits. The drink adds what pulses as a class are known for — fibre, and the guidelines' note that fibre-rich foods such as pulses improve satiety — while the gram family is measured low on the glycemic index. One process benefit is plain: the flour is roasted before grinding, so it is ready to eat as it comes. Each benefit, with its source, is on sattu benefits.

For most people sattu is an everyday gram food. The two cautions worth knowing start with the belly: some people find pulses gassy, and the 2019 pulse-tolerance review says most of those who react at first settle within a few weeks of keeping the same intake, so early gas is not a stop sign by itself. The sugars behind it are raffinose-family oligosaccharides that the colon ferments, though the review adds that the explanation is debated; a small start and steady use is the practical answer. The second caution is about uric acid: anyone already managing gout or advanced kidney disease should be careful with high-purine plant foods. The wider evidence is milder — in a 12-year study of US men, plant foods higher in purines, peas, beans and lentils among them, showed no link to gout, and cooked chickpeas land in the very low purine band of a 2019 review. If either caution applies to you, ask your doctor or dietitian; the point belongs to the person, not the flour, since the same gram foods that suit most people simply need checking against a diagnosed condition. The longer list is on sattu benefits.

The classic use is the drink: the recipe takes 60 g of sattu to a litre of cold water, divides the jug four ways, finishing the sweet pair with jaggery and the salted pair with lemon, and chills it for 30 minutes — 15 g of sattu in each 250 ml glass. Its four glasses go two and two: the sweet pair finished with a tablespoon of jaggery powder each, the salted pair with pink salt, crushed roasted cumin, lemon, onion and mint. The same drink is also called sattu sharbat or sattu juice, and the full method is the sattu drink recipe. Beyond the glass, the flour kneads into doughs for stuffed flatbreads and thickens a pot of dal, and its un-ground form — the roasted gram itself — is a snack on its own; the dietary guidelines count roasted chickpeas among their nutritious snack options. Because the gram is already roasted, the drink is mixed cold with no cooking step; doughs and dal cook as part of their own dishes. Sattu keeps as a dry flour in any season; the drink is served chilled, and in winters the flour goes into doughs and dal the same as any other month.

The method is four moves: roast clean gram on a low flame, stirring throughout, for 15 to 20 minutes until it is toasted through; cool it completely for 30 to 60 minutes; pulse-grind it; then sieve, re-grinding whatever stays coarse. The roast is right when the toasty smell of the gram itself rises and a cooled gram tastes cooked through; the standard's uniform colour and characteristic roasted taste and smell describe the same done state. Home or store, the finished flour is the same thing: roasted gram, ground and sieved. The standard's fixed lines are the same logic — moisture held to 8 percent at most, and a fineness that carries the whole batch through a 35-mesh sieve. The full step-by-step, with the mistakes that spoil a batch, is on how is sattu made.

Weight questions get the same honest answer: no calorie figure is published for sattu, so no deficit or surplus can be computed from the flour itself. What the research prints is about pulses as a class — in the 2016 meta-analysis of 21 trials, diets with pulses ended a modest 0.34 kg lower over about six weeks — a finding with a confidence interval of 0.63 to 0.04 kg and the paper's own caution that the effect is small — and what the guidelines print is the plate: pulses and legumes get 85 g a day on the 2000 kcal reference day, of which sattu can take a share. The salted, unsweetened drink adds no sugar; the jaggery version adds the jaggery's energy, about a tablespoon of it in each sweet glass. A weight-gain direction works the same way: energy added to the glass comes from the sweetener and any other additions, not from a published sattu figure. The working-through, better and worse ways included, is on is sattu good for weight loss.

Store sattu like any dry flour: a sealed jar in a cool, dry spot, a dry spoon, and a sniff before use — kept that way, the flour keeps well. When you buy, read the pack name first: chana sattu on the label means the roasted flour of the standard, and a pack of besan is a different, raw flour. The quality lines worth checking are the ones the standard fixes — the protein floor of 20 percent on the dry basis, moisture held to 8 percent, and a 35-mesh fineness for the whole batch — along with an even colour and that characteristic roasted taste and smell. Besan's own standard sets a moisture cap of 12 percent, one more printed way to tell the raw flour from the roasted one. The same checks hold whether the flour is bought packed or loose; the hub pages above cover everything from names to the drink.

What is sattu?

The roasted gram flour the FSSAI standard calls chana sattu: gram washed, dried and roasted, ground only after, with nothing else added. The roasting is what makes it ready to eat as it comes, and the one nutrient figure its standard prints is a floor of 20 percent protein on the dry basis.

What is sattu powder?

The same flour by its form: sattu is a powder of roasted gram, ground fine enough to pass 35 mesh under the FSSAI standard. Powder and flour name one thing, used as it comes in drinks and doughs. The mesh line is the fineness the standard fixes, not a claim about nutrients.

What is sattu flour?

Roasted gram flour, the milled form of roasted Bengal gram. Besan is the other gram flour, ground from raw dehusked gram and meant to be cooked; sattu is roasted before grinding, so the flour arrives ready to use. The label name to look for is chana sattu.

How to make sattu drink?

Take 60 g of sattu for a litre of cold water, stir until smooth, divide the jug four ways and finish each glass sweet with jaggery or salty with lemon, roasted cumin and salt, then chill for 30 minutes. The sattu goes in raw — the roasting already did the cooking. The full recipe, with both finishes, is the sattu drink page.

Is sattu good for weight loss?

It can sit inside a weight plan, but sattu itself has no published calorie figure, so the flour is counted by its additions and its share of the day's pulses. The salted drink adds no sugar; the sweetened one adds the sweetener's energy. The evidence and portions are on is sattu good for weight loss.

What is sattu made of?

One ingredient: Bengal gram, roasted and then ground. The FSSAI standard allows no extraneous matter and no adulterant, so plain chana sattu is roasted gram flour and nothing else. The roast comes first, the grind after. If a second grain is wanted, it is roasted separately and blended in after grinding.

What is sattu called in english?

Roasted Bengal gram flour, the English name the FSSAI standard prints for chana sattu. The gram behind the name is Cicer arietinum; the roast before the grind is what separates sattu from besan. More names, language by language, are on sattu in english.