Panakam
Preparation Time
5 minutes
Cooking Time
10 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Drinks
Serves 4
Key Ingredients
- Jaggery powder
About This Recipe
Panakam is the spiced jaggery drink made by dissolving gur in water and seasoning it with dry ginger, black pepper and cardamom. This panakam recipe keeps the classic measures: one hundred grams of jaggery to four cups of water, a full teaspoon of dry ginger, half a teaspoon of coarsely ground pepper and a little cardamom.
The lemon goes in last and its job is balance. A squeeze lifts the ginger and pepper; too much turns the drink into a plain jaggery lemonade and the spices disappear. Stop while it still tastes of gur and heat. A pinch of salt is the optional extra some pots take; it sharpens the sweetness without tasting salty.
The drink needs no heat at all: powder dissolves with a few minutes of mashing in water. What it does need is the ten-minute steep, which is when the pepper and ginger open into the jaggery. Serve it chilled or at room temperature, and count each glass inside the day's added-sugar allowance the way any sweet drink is counted.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Drink
- Jaggery powder — 100 g
- Water — 4 cups
- Dry ginger powder (sonth) — 1 tsp
- Black pepper, coarsely ground — 1/2 tsp
- Cardamom Powder — 1/4 tsp
- Lemon juice — 2 tbsp
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Serving Suggestions
Serve in tall glasses, chilled or at room temperature, poured over ice on a hot afternoon. A thin slice of lemon on the glass is enough garnish. A second squeeze of lemon at the table suits those who like it sharper. For more ways to drink gur, see the jaggery recipes roundup.
Tips for Cooking Panakam
Mix the spices into a paste with a spoon of water first; dry powders tipped straight into the jug float in specks instead of flavour. Mash the jaggery rather than just stirring it. Taste after the lemon and stop while the ginger still leads. The steep is not optional: straight off the spoon, the drink tastes thin.
Chef’s Note
One glass comes to about 88 kcal and 21.2 g of carbohydrate, all of it sugars from the jaggery; the spices and lemon add nothing worth counting. Four glasses from a hundred grams of gur means the batch splits evenly, and the drink is a sweet course in itself.
Per serving (approx.): 88 kcal, protein 0.5 g, carbs 21 g, fat 0 g, fibre 0 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 10, 2026
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