Dabeli Recipe

Meet Dabeli, a popular Gujarati street food snack from Western India. Pillowy soft dinner rolls are smeared with finger-licking good chutneys and stuffed with spicy mashed potatoes. They are garnished with roasted peanuts, crunchy sev & pomegranate arils. With a lot of texture and a burst of flavors, they taste sweet, spicy & tangy.

No matter you make this for a special dinner or for a tea party, Kutchi Dabeli is going to be a showstopper! In this post I share the recipe to make it from scratch which includes the spice blend – dabeli masala, chutney and the potato masala. But feel free to use store bought spice blend and chutneys to save time & get these ready under 50 mins.

About Kutchi Dabeli

This amazing food is said to have originated from the Kutch region of Gujarat and is also known as double roti. But is popular and eaten all over Southern & Western states of India.

Though Dabeli is a chaat snack, we love eating it for dinner or lunch. Kachumber or pomegranate salad and Lassi go well with this. If you are making this from scratch like the way I did, prepare the chutneys and spice blend the previous day. Make the stuffing and assemble Dabeli on the day you want to serve.

Alternately you may make even the stuffing the previous day, reheat when you are ready to assemble them.

All the Kutchi Dabeli we have eaten out never had coriander chutney in it. However I suggest using that in place of spicy red garlic chutney for kids & low heat option. Green chutney also aids digestion and is great to have on the side. But feel free to omit it if you don’t want to and it is not a part of the recipe.

Here is a little about the ingredients and substitutes you need to make this. All the ingredients are available online or in Indian grocery stores.

Ingredients & Substitutes

• Pav – These are Indian style unsweetened dinner rolls. You may substitute these with buns or French baguette.
• Potatoes – We use boiled potatoes for the stuffing. If you want to cut down the carbs, you may reduce the quantity of potatoes to half and use other steamed veggies like carrots, peas and cauliflower.
• Dabeli Masala is a spice blend used specially to make this food. But I have found misal masala and pav bhaji masala work the same way. If you are not accessible to any of these use lesser amount of meat masala (no meat in it), garam masala or biryani masala. Though it won’t taste the same it still tastes delicious. To make your own read the expert tips section below.
• Roasted skinned split peanuts add crunch and flavor to your Dabeli. You can use store bought or dry roast the peanuts in a pan or air fryer until crunchy, aromatic and golden. Cool down, add to a cloth, wrap them, rub to peel off and discard the skin.
• Red garlic chutney – You may use store bought spicy garlic chili chutney or make following my recipe below. Avoid garlic chutney if you are making it for kids, they won’t be able to handle the heat. If you don’t prefer a spicy Dabeli feel free to use this Coriander chutney.
• Tamarind chutney is easily available in the stores and it is labelled as Imli chutney. It is tastes sweet and tangy.
• Sev are fine crunchy noodles made with gram flour. If you can’t find them, you may use crushed tortilla chips. Add the tortilla chips to a ziplock bag and crush them gently with a rolling pin, to get small bits.
• Pomegranate arils are a key garnishing. They not only add crunch but also impart sweet and tangy flavors to the Dabeli. There are no substitutes for this but candied/ glazed cherries may work.

Photo Guide

How to make Dabeli

Preparation

1. Omit this step to use ¾ cup store bought tamarind chutney. For a handsfree option, I make my tamarind chutney and boil potatoes in a pressure cooker/instant pot, both at the same time. However you can also boil the potatoes in a pot. Please follow this link to make tamarind chutney.

2. You will need 1 pound (450 grams) potatoes. To boil in a pot, peel & dice them to 2 inch pieces, cover them with water and boil until fork tender. I cut each large potato to 2 portions and pressure cooked for 10 mins on high pressure. If using a stovetop cooker, cook until you hear 3 whistles. Later cool down, peel and mash them well.

3. Omit the next 2 steps to use ½ cup store bought red chili garlic chutney. Meanwhile, to a grinder jar add the following ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon Kashmiri red chili powder (or soak 12 deseeded & destemmed Kashmiri dried red chilies in 1 cup boiling hot water until soft, about 10 mins. Remove them and add to a blender.)
• 6 (20 grams) large garlic cloves (peeled)
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
• ½ teaspoon sea salt (adjust to taste)
• 1½ to 2 tablespoons jaggery powder (or 1 teaspoon sugar or other sweetener)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (more if needed)
• 2 tablespoons roasted peanuts
• ¼ cup water (plus more to adjust while grinding)

4. Grind to a smooth thick chutney, adding water as needed. Taste test and adjust salt, sweetener or lemon juice as required. Your garlic chutney is ready.

5. On a medium flame, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan and add 1 cup roasted skinned peanuts, 1 tablespoon dabeli masala and salt as required. Omit salt if using salted peanuts or if your dabeli masala already has salt in it. If using store bought spice blend start with lesser as it can be very spicy.

6. Mix and fry the peanuts well until the spices begin to smell good, for 2 mins. If the spice don’t stick to the peanuts, add little more oil. Turn off the heat and remove to a plate.

Make the stuffing

7. Heat 1 tablespoon more oil and stir in 1½ tablespoon dabeli masala. Add 2 tablespoons sweet tamarind chutney.

8. Mix well and cook for a minute.

9. Pour half cup water and simmer until boiling hot.

10. Add the mashed potatoes and salt as required (about half tsp or more).

11. Mix and mash well until combined. Taste test and adjust salt, tamarind chutney or dabeli masala to your preference. Cook for 2 to 3 mins and turn off.

12. Transfer this to a serving bowl if you want but it is not essential. Even out the surface with a spatula. Garnish only when you are ready to assemble and serve. Meanwhile prepare

• ¾ cup pomegranate arils (or chopped glazed/ candied cherries)
• ½ cup onions (fine chopped)
• ¼ cup coriander leaves (chopped)
• ¾ cup nylon sev (fine sev, substitute with crushed tortilla chips)

13. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons each of chopped onions, sev/ crushed tortilla chips, roasted peanuts, chopped coriander leaves and pomegranate arils over the potato stuffing.

Assemble Dabeli

13. You will need 8 pav/buns for this recipe. Slit the pavs on 3 sides, keeping the other side intact.

14. Spread 1 tablespoon sweet tamarind chutney on one side and ½ to 1 tbsp red garlic chutney on the other side. If making for kids, use coriander chutney instead of garlic chutney.

15. Stuff with 1½ to 2 tablespoons of potato masala and add 1 teaspoon chopped onions.

16. Add 1 tablespoon peanuts and a few pomegranate arils.

17. Add another layer of potato stuffing and even out the surface on three sides using a spoon. This way assemble all the dabeli.

18. Spread remaining sev and half of the remaining peanuts in one plate. Add remaining chopped onions, 2 tablespoons pomegranate arils and coriander leaves to another plate. Press down the dabeli over the ingredients, one after the other into both the plates. Rotate the bun on all the 3 sides to coat.

19. This is how they look.

Toast

20. Add 1 to 2 teaspoons butter or ghee to a pan and place the dabeli. Smear soft butter or ghee on top of the dabeli and toast them until hot/ crisp. Dabeli is usually pressed down with a spatula at this stage, if you want you may do that.

21. If you want to serve them later, after a while you can also toast them without the garnish and finish that step later just before serving.

Serve Dabeli immediately after garnishing.

Expert Tips

• Before you begin to assemble, taste test all the components – chutneys, spiced peanuts and the stuffing to adjust salt, tang and sweet tastes. Else you will end up with bland stuff.
• Stuffing peanuts, pomegranate and onions inside the pav, in between the potato stuffing adds a delicious crunch to the dabeli. If you omit that you will eat only plain potato stuffing inside.
• If you are making a large batch, it is easier to toast the butter smeared pavs in a preheated oven at 350 F – 175 C. It just takes 2 mins. Over toasting makes them hard.
• Avoid adding onions to the stuffing if you are not going to serve them right away. The flavor and texture of raw onions will change if you let the assembled dabeli sit too long.
• It is the same with peanuts, they become soft but still taste good if you let them sit long after assembling.
• To make this ahead, have every thing ready but assemble when you are ready to serve. or assemble them and toast but garnish when you are ready to serve. Soft sev does not taste good.
• I have used everything homemade including the spice blend. But if you are using store bought please adjust the spice levels to your taste. They may be extra hot and spicy. Here is the recipe to make a batch of dabeli masala. It makes good enough to make 12 dabeli.

• 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 4 cloves
• 1 inch cinnamon piece
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 small star anise (if you don’t like strong flavor, cut down to to half)
• ½ teaspoon black pepper corn
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut (desiccated coconut)
• 1 teaspoon black salt
• 1 tablespoon Kashmiri red chili powder (or 6 Kashmiri red chillies, add more for high heat, cut down for low heat)
• 1 teaspoon amchur (mango powder)

Roast all the spices on a low to medium heat until aromatic. Add the coconut and toast until aromatic. Turn off and grind with the rest of the ingredients to a fine masala.

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