Papri Chat or Papri Chaat is a famous North Indian street food. Papri are flaky crackers that you can serve with yogurt, green chutney, red chutney, spiced potatoes and few other elements. It's a delicious dish that is little sweet, little spicy and have different textures.
What is Chaat ?
Chaat or Chat is a family of savory snacks that is originated in India. There are various different kinds of chaat you can find in India. There is always one base ingredients like flaky crackers, chickpea, potatoes, etc. You add yogurt along with green and red chutney for the sweet and savory taste.
Everything combined with few other ingredients like raw onion, sev, cucumber, pomegranate etc. makes every bite moreish and finger licking good.
In India, you can find chaat on road side stalls, and small restaurants. Some big restaurants have now started to serve chaat in gourmet style too.
Papri Chaat Ingredient Notes:
Papri - Savory flaky crackers prepared with all purpose flour. It is easy to make at home but also available in Indian store in snack sections.
Substitute: if you absolutely cannot find these savory crackers, try the same dish using tortilla chips or any savory flaky crackers.
Boiled Potatoes: You can either roughly mash the boiled potatoes or slice into bite size and seasoned with chaat masala, chili powder and salt. You can use boiled chickpeas too.
Yogurt: You season yogurt with cumin powder, salt and sugar.
Green Chutney and Red Chutney: These two chutneys are a must in every chaat. Green chutney is prepared with a mix of fresh mint and fresh cilantro leaves. Red Chutney is prepared with tamarind and dates.
Raw Onion, Cucumber, Tomatoes, pomegranate: You add these on top for refreshing crunchy bites. In this recipe, I added onion, cucumber and pomegranate, but you can add tomatoes too.
Sev: Sev is another famous snack that is prepared with chickpea flour. Sev are tiny stands of noodles, and you can find various different ones in the store. For chaat, I like to use the very thin variety.
Spices: Cumin Powder, Chili Powder, Chaat Masala
Steps to prepare Papri Chat
You can serve Papri Chaat is two different ways. You can either serve the elements separately and let people top everything on the papri. Or layer the different elements in a serving plate and then use it as a dip with papri.
I prefer the dip serving, as that way, you can even spoon the layers dips straight on the papri individually.
1: In a serving plate add the thick plain yogurt along with cumin powder, salt and sugar. Whisk and spread it evenly on the plate.
2: Drizzle the green and red chutney on top.
3: Top it with mashed or bite size boiled potatoes seasoned with chaat masala, salt and chili powder.
4. Add chopped cucumber, onion. You can add tomatoes too.
5: Sprinkle chaat masala, pomegranate seeds and sev.
6: Serve it as a dip.
7. Serve in individual papris.
Recipe Video:
Variations to add:
Finding papri can be difficult if you don't have any Indian store nearby. A good variations would be to use crunchy tortilla chips, or any savory crackers.
You can add boiled chickpeas instead of boiled potatoes.
Couple keynotes:
If you are using cucumber and tomato, make sure it doesn't have seeds, as that will release water, spoiling the creamy texture of the yogurt potato dip.
If you are making this in advance, make sure you add the sev just before serving.
FAQs
Papri is made of all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, seasoned with carom seeds and cumin seeds. The dough is kept tight and flaky by adding oil or ghee. Then it's rolled and deep fried.
Papri Chat tastes best when made fresh. You can make a few hours in advance, but wouldn't recommend making it a day in advance, as the yogurt and chopped veggies will release water with time. You can prep all the elements a day in advance and store in the fridge.
If you eat in small portion and don't indulge very regularly, then it's fine. The crackers are deep fried, but you can make at home and air fry. Instead of adding potatoes you can add boiled chickpeas, you can reduce the carb intake.
Here are few Indian street food to try:
Recipe inspired from The Global Vegetarian
Papri Chaat
Ingredients
- 2 large size potatoes
- 3 cups thick plain yogurt
- papris
- 1 small onion (finely chopped)
- 1 small cucumber (finely chopped)
- green chutney and red chutney (recipe link in notes below)
- sev to drizzle on top
- pomegranate
- 3 tablespoon chaat masala powder
- 1 tablespoon cumin powder
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ½ tablespoon chili powder
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Boil or steam the potatoes and once cooled, roughly mash the potatoes or slice into small bite size. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons chaat masala, salt and chili powder and mix it around.
- In a serving bowl, add the yogurt, cumin powder, sugar and salt to taste. Whisk and layer it on the serving plate.
- Drizzle the green and red chutney on top.
- Scatter the seasoned potatoes on top, followed by chopped onion and chopped cucumber.
- Sprinkle a bit more chaat masala on top, pomegranate seeds and crunchy sev.
- Enjoy with papris.
Ananda Rajashekar
you got me here girl looks amazing! i have never produce so good chats at home! now i have to hop in to see if I could make them 🙂
briarrose
Looks amazing! Heading over to check it out.
Maya
Papri Chaat is a new thing for me, but after seeing your beautiful depiction of it, I'm going to hunt it down on every Indian restaurant menu I can find! Wait, did you say it was street food? Then I'm going to have to make it myself!
Soma
oh beautifully ! u did perfect it 🙂 Drooling over this now at dinner time.
Kelly
Kankana, this is glorious. Your food is so rich in every sense of the word. Those chutneys look fantastic!
sukanya
wonderful with all the colors and nice pics...love papri chaat and any street food for that matter
Vijitha
YummY! ANy day Any time is chaat time for me. Gorgeous pics sweety 🙂
Tina (PinayInTexas)
Amazing photos, Kankana! And that Papri Chaat is so beautiful!!!
Xiaolu @ 6 Bittersweets
I love this chaat and also Shulie and her blog -- great post!
Silvia
I like! Not only because it is a different dish with lots of color but because it has to be delicious.
Besos.
aarthi
my mum used to make this more often..love it always..but yours looks way better...Good pictures too...Thanks for the recipe
aarthi
my mum used to make this more often..love it always..