Dal pakwan
Preparation Time
26 minutes
Cooking Time
30 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Breakfast
Serves 4
Key Ingredients
- Chana dal (split bengal gram)
About This Recipe
Dal pakwan is the breakfast of Sindhi homes: a bowl of soft, creamy chana dal with small, crisp fried flatbreads called pakwan, eaten with green chutney. The dal is the same split bengal gram covered in our chana dal guide, pressure cooked and blended smooth, then finished with a ghee tempering of cumin and whole red chillies.
The pakwan dough is whole wheat flour with a little oil, rolled into thin rounds and pricked all over so they fry flat and crisp. This recipe gives timings for both halves of the plate: the dal cooks first, and the dough rests while the dal cools, so the two come to the table together. For a dal pakwan without frying, the frying step below has a bake option.
The dal should pour like a thick soup when it is hot and set to a soft mash as it cools, so loosen it with a splash of the cooking water before it goes to the table. The chutney is plain coriander and green chilli; many homes set a sweet tamarind chutney beside it as well.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Dal
- Chana dal (split bengal gram) — 1 cup
- Turmeric Powder — 1/2 tsp
- Salt — 1 tsp
- Water — 3 cups
Tempering
- Ghee — 1 tbsp
- Cumin Seeds — 1 tsp
- Whole dried red chillies — 2 pieces
Pakwan dough
- Whole wheat flour (atta) — 2 cups
- Groundnut oil (for the dough) — 2 tbsp
- Salt — 1/2 tsp
- Water — 3/4 cup
Green chutney
- Fresh coriander leaves — 1 cup
- Green chilli — 2 pieces
- Lemon juice — 1 tbsp
- Water — 2 tbsp
For frying
- Groundnut oil, for deep frying — 250 ml
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Serving Suggestions
Serve the dal hot in bowls with the green chutney spooned on top and a stack of pakwan on the side; break a pakwan over each spoonful as you eat. The dal keeps up to two days in the fridge and loosens with a little water on reheating. The chana dal recipes roundup covers the dal's other forms.
Tips for Cooking Dal pakwan
Blend only until smooth; over-blending makes the dal gluey. Keep it on the loose side in the pan, because it sets firm as it cools. Knead the pakwan dough firm and rest it fully, or the rounds spring back as you roll. Fry in batches of five or six, turning once; the oil is ready when a scrap of dough rises within a few seconds.
Chef’s Note
Cool the fried pakwan on paper away from the steam of the dal and they stay crisp for hours. A full plate of this dal pakwan, six pakwan with a quarter of the dal, comes to about 561 kcal, 17.3 g of protein and 14.7 g of fibre, the carbohydrate mostly from the pakwan's wheat flour.
Per serving (approx.): 561 kcal, protein 17 g, carbs 63 g, fat 26 g, fibre 15 g. Computed from IFCT 2017 / USDA values for the listed quantities. Measures: 1 cup = 240 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml.
Happy Cooking
!!
ByCOWBERRY
Jun 28, 2026
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