Sundal Recipe

Sundal Recipe made with white chickpeas, spices, curry leaves and fresh coconut. Sundal is a traditional dish from Tamil Cuisine usually made with legumes, lentils or grains as the main ingredient. The dish holds a special place during the festive days, especially during Navratri and Vinayaka Chaturthi. It is also offered to the deities in a lot of temples in South India & later shared with the devotees.

Sundal

To make sundal, legumes, lentils or grains are first soaked and cooked until tender. Later they are added to a tempering made with ghee/ oil, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal, curry leaves, red chilies and hing. Lastly coconut the star ingredient is also added to the sundal.

Sundal is also made in other South Indian states and is known by different names. Since this is mostly made for religious occasions, ingredients like onion and garlic are not used. You will also see a lot of fancy sundal varieties being made and they have the unusual ingredients like garam masala or spiced lentil powders etc.

In this post I have used white chickpeas to make the sundal. But it can be made with black chickpeas, chana dal, green gram, black eyed peas, horse gram, sweet corn and even with Navadhanya (9 different grains).

The process to make sundal with any grains is the same. They have to be soaked and cooked first. So both these timings vary with the kind of grain. The tempering part is the same. Traditionally fresh grated coconut is used but frozen one works too.

Sundal also makes for a great side in an Indian meal. It can also be served as a snack anytime.

Photo Guide

How to Make Sundal (Stepwise photos)

1. Wash and soak half cup chana in lots of water for 8 hours or overnight. Drain the water and pressure cook for 3 to 4 whistles on a medium flame using ½ to ¾ cup water. If using instant pot pressure cook for 18 minutes. Chana needs to be soft, tender and hold the shape.

2. Add 1 ½ tablespoon ghee to a hot pan. When the ghee becomes hot, add ½ teaspoon mustard seeds,½ teaspoon cumin seeds and 1 teaspoon urad dal. We use desi cow’s ghee for tempering especially if offering to Goddess Lakshmi.

3. Allow mustard, cumin to crackle. Saute dal until golden.

4. Add 1 sprig curry leaves, ½ teaspoon ginger (optional) and 1 broken dried red chili. Saute until the curry leaves turn crisp. Add a pinch of hing. I do not use ginger.

5. Drain water/stock completely from cooked chana to a bowl and add the chana to the pan along with ⅛ teaspoon turmeric and ¼ teaspoon salt.

6. Add 2 to 4 tablespoons fresh grated coconut. I blended coarsely few freshly broken coconut chunks in a chutney jar and used. We use freshly broken coconut and do not use the one which is already offered during pooja or one used for regular cooking purposes.

7. Mix every well and switch off.

Cool chana sundal completely and offer as naivedyam.

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Sundal Recipe first published in August 2016. Updated & republished in July 2022.