Moong dal kachori
Preparation Time
45 minutes
Cooking Time
45 minutes
Difficulty Level
moderate
Meal Type
Evening Snack
Serves 4
Key Ingredients
- Green moong split (chilka moong dal)
About This Recipe
Kachori is North India's deep-fried stuffed pastry, and spiced moong is one of its standard fillings, fried fresh in halwai shops and home kitchens alike. This version wraps the filling in sharbati atta, so the shell comes out nutty and crisp, and grinds the soaked moong dal coarse so each bite has texture under the crust. Moong dal kachori in Punjabi kitchens is often served with pickle and tea, or split over a bowl of spiced potato sabzi.
The filling is the point of the recipe: split moong soaked for 30 minutes, ground coarse and roasted dry with fennel, cumin and coriander until it smells toasted and tastes cooked. That roast is what keeps the centre soft instead of raw after the short fry. The dough carries oil rubbed into the flour before the water goes in, which is what makes the shell flaky rather than bready.
The batch splits evenly into sixteen kachoris, about 34 g of dough around 25 g of filling in each, and the quantities below are sized so the filling always fits its shell. Maida makes a paler, flakier shell if you do not mind refined flour, and a teaspoon of amchur in the spices gives a sourer filling. For the softer dishes from the same dal, the moong dal recipe roundup is the place to look.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
For the dough
- Sharbati wheat flour (atta) — 2 1/2 cups
- Groundnut oil (for the dough) — 4 tbsp
- Water, to knead — 3/4 cup
For the filling
- Green moong split (chilka moong dal) — 1 cup
- Fennel seeds (saunf) — 1 tbsp
- Coriander Powder — 1 tbsp
- Cumin Seeds — 1 tsp
- Red chilli powder — 1 tsp
- Hing (asafoetida) powder — 1/4 tsp
- Turmeric Powder — 1/4 tsp
- Ginger, grated — 1 tsp
- Green chilli, finely chopped — 1 piece
- Salt — 1 tsp
For frying
- Groundnut oil (absorbed while frying) — 5 tbsp
- Groundnut oil (in the kadhai, for frying) — 3 cups
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Serving Suggestions
Serve hot, straight from the kadhai, with green chutney and tamarind chutney; the crust softens as it cools, so eat them within the hour or reheat before serving. Leftover kachoris keep up to two days in the fridge and come back crisp in a dry pan or an oven.
Tips for Cooking Moong dal kachori
Knead the dough until it is firm and springy; a slack dough tears when you seal it. Roast the filling until a pinch of it tastes cooked, because the fry is short and raw-tasting moong stays raw in the centre. Use enough oil for the kachoris to float, about 3 cups in a wide kadhai, and fry three or four at a time, turning often for an even golden shell.
Chef’s Note
The short soak and the dry roast do the same job: they take the raw edge off the moong so the coarse dal cooks through in the few minutes of frying. A serving of four kachoris comes to about 703 kcal and 19.9 g of protein, with 13.1 g of fibre, most of the fat the oil the shells take up.
Per serving (approx.): 703 kcal, protein 20 g, carbs 75 g, fat 36 g, fibre 13 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
Sep 02, 2026
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