Jowar roti
Preparation Time
15 minutes
Cooking Time
25 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Lunch
Serves 3
Key Ingredients
- Jowar (sorghum) flour
About This Recipe
Jowar ki roti is the flatbread of the jowar-growing belt: sorghum flour, salt and water, with nothing to roll because jowar flour has no gluten to stretch. The dough is kneaded with boiling water and the roti is patted out by hand, so it comes out soft, with a pale, speckled top and a mild, nutty flavour.
Here a cup and a half of boiling water goes into two cups of flour, with two teaspoons of oil in the dough so it kneads softer. The boiling water sets the starch and does the binding job that gluten would do in wheat. This roti is patted between two plastic sheets and stays on the tawa the whole way, which suits gas and induction hobs alike.
Water that is merely hot is the usual reason jowar dough cracks at the edges while patting; a full boil and a ten-minute rest fix it. A cool tawa or a long slow cook dries the roti out, so cook hot and lift as soon as brown spots show. For a bajra-jowar roti, replace half the jowar flour with bajra flour, and if the dough still breaks, work a spoon of rice flour into it.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Dough
- Jowar (sorghum) flour — 2 cups
- Boiling water — 1 1/2 cups
- Salt — 1/2 tsp
- Groundnut oil — 2 tsp
For cooking
- Ghee — 1 tbsp
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Serving Suggestions
Serve jowar roti hot, straight off the tawa, with a spoon of ghee, a dal, a dry sabzi like brinjal bharta, or green thecha; a bowl of curd rounds it out. Eat it warm, as it firms as it cools. Leftover rotis keep in a cloth-lined box for a day; reheat them dry on the tawa. The bhakri, thalipeeth and laddu from the jowar recipes roundup all begin from the same flour.
Tips for Cooking Jowar roti
The water must be at a rolling boil, not merely hot, or the dough cracks while you pat. Give the kneaded dough ten minutes of rest under a cover, so the flour drinks the water evenly, and keep the portioned balls beneath a damp cloth as you work. Pat from the centre outward between the sheets and keep the edge even, and cook on a properly hot tawa, lifting each roti as soon as brown spots show.
Chef’s Note
One roti, 40 g of flour, comes to about 134 kcal before the ghee; with the dough oil and the tawa ghee counted, a serving of two is about 342 kcal with 8.2 g of fibre. Press the edges with the folded cloth to make it puff, and cover the cooked rotis at once, or they turn brittle within minutes.
Per serving (approx.): 342 kcal, protein 8 g, carbs 54 g, fat 9.7 g, fibre 8.2 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
Jul 27, 2026
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