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    Home » Recipes » Side Dish For Idli Dosa

    Vada curry recipe, Steamed vada curry

    July 31, 2014 by Raks Anand 26 Comments / Jump to Recipe

    Vada curry recipe - steamed version with full video and step by step detailed pictures. Save some extra calories with the steamed version of vada curry, a popular street food in Saidapet, Madras. There is another version, please scroll down to see the recipe.

    south Indian breakfast combo
    Steamed vada curry
    Jump to:
    • About
    • Recipe card
    • Steamed version Method
    • Deep fried version

    About

    As I posted last in the breakfast menu11, here I am  with the vada curry recipe. This is perfect for dosa for me, loved it a lot with soft spongy dosa.

    Some suggest this for appam, poori or chapati too. I tried with chapati, it was good. Yet to try with poori and appam.

    I can eat vada curry as such even though its a side dish. It gives good much volume, so it's perfect when you have get-togethers  or have guest at home.

    You follow the same recipe and make with leftover masala vadais too. Again thanks to Vilasini & Viji for the recipes.

    I have tasted vada curry only in Saravana bhavan HSB once. Loved it a lot and wanted to recreate at home.

    Though stayed in Chennai for an year that too in Saidapet, but never knew vada curry was famous in that area.

    During that time, I was a homey-bird, never had chance to go out and eat. So I hope I could once get to taste.

    After seeing some YouTube food videos, I saw it to be super masala filled side dish. I think it satisfies people from all groups with such a spicy masala base.

    vada curry recipe

    I made it mild spiced and now have updated video to it with slight modifications as I learnt. Let's make some vada curry now.

    Recipe card

    south Indian breakfast combo
    Print Pin
    4.8 from 5 votes

    Steamed vada curry recipe

    Vada curry recipe - steamed version with full video and step by step detailed pictures. Save some extra calories with the steamed version of vada curry, a popular street food in Saidapet, Madras.
    Course Side Dish
    Cuisine Indian, South Indian
    Prep Time 10 minutes
    Cook Time 30 minutes
    Soaking time 3 hours
    Servings 4

    Equipments (Amazon Affiliate links)

    • Steamer
    Cup measurements

    Ingredients

    • ½ cup Chana dal
    • 4 Red chilli
    • 1 teaspoon Fennel / Soambu/ Saunf
    • 2 Onion
    • 3 Tomato
    • 1 teaspoon Ginger garlic paste
    • 1 & ½ teaspoon Red chilli powder
    • 1 teaspoon Coriander seeds powder
    • ½ teaspoon Garam masala powder optional
    • ¼ teaspoon Turmeric
    • Salt - as needed
    • 10 Mint leaves
    • 2 tablespoon Coriander leaves chopped
    • 1 sprig Curry leaves

    To temper

    • 2 tablespoon Oil
    • 1 inch Cinnamon
    • 1 Cardamom
    • 1 Cloves
    • 1 Biryani leaf
    • 1 teaspoon kal pasi optional
    • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
    Prevent your screen from going dark

    Instructions

    • Soak channa dal for 3 hrs.  First grind chilli, fennel and salt.
    • Then add the drained chana and grind coarsely. Do in batches to ensure even grinding. Do not grind smoothly.
    • Grease idli plates and fill the moulds with the ground mixture, make a dent at the middle to ensure easy cooking. Steam cook for 10-15 minutes.
    • Once cooled, break it roughly. I forgot to add curry leaves before steaming, so added after breaking. Heat a pan with oil and temper with the items given under ‘To temper’ table in order.
    • Add finely chopped onion and fry till transparent. In goes ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute in medium flame. Add finely chopped tomatoes and all the powders – red chilli powder, dhaniya powder (coriander powder) and turmeric powder.Sprinkle required salt for the gravy.
    • Fry for a minute or until the masala blends and becomes mushy. Add 2-3 cups water depending on thick or thinner gravy you want.
    • Bring to boil and add the crumbled dal and simmer for 10 minutes.
    • Once the oil floats on top and the gravy becomes thicker. Add 2 tablespoon coconut milk ( I added Store bought in the updated video)  if adding and bring to boil again. garnish with chopped coriander and mint leaves.

    Video

    Notes

    • Add enough water as it requires lots of water.
    • Mint leaves adds very nice flavor to the gravy.
    • If using masala vada, use 6-8 vadai depending on the size.
    • You can add 2 slit green chillies if you want extra hot gravy.
    • Kal pasi adds a nice hotel style flavour, do add if you have.
    • Adding coconut milk in last step enhances the flavour and taste (Tip from Revathy shanmugam mam)
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    InstagramMention @rakskitchen or tag #rakskitchen if you have tried this recipe.

    Steamed version Method

    1. Soak chana dal for 3 hrs.  First grind chilli, fennel and salt.
      1-soak
    2. Then add the drained chana and grind coarsely. Do in batches to ensure even grinding. Do not grind smoothly.
      2-grind
    3. Grease idli plates and fill the moulds with the ground mixture, make a dent at the middle to ensure easy cooking. Steam cook for 10-15 minutes.
      3-steam
    4. Once cooled, break it roughly. I forgot to add curry leaves before steaming, so added after breaking. Heat a pan with oil and temper with the items given under ‘To temper’ table in order.
      4-temper
    5. Add finely chopped onion and fry till transparent. In goes ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute in medium flame. Add finely chopped tomatoes and all the powders – red chilli powder, dhaniya powder (coriander powder) and turmeric powder.Sprinkle required salt for the gravy.
      5-masala
    6. Fry for a minute or until the masala blends and becomes mushy. Add 2-3 cups water depending on thick or thinner gravy you want.
      6-masala-cook
    7. Bring to boil and add the crumbled dal and simmer for 10 minutes.
      7-boil
    8. Once the oil floats on top and the gravy becomes thicker. Add 2 tablespoon coconut milk ( I added Store bought in the updated video)  if adding and bring to boil again. garnish with chopped coriander and mint leaves.
      8-garnish

    Serve hot with hot set dosa  - the dosa you see below is nothing but soft thick dosas, made from idli dosa batter.

    vada curry recipe

    Deep fried version

    When Aj's classmate's mom Raji told this recipe it sounded simple to try. I have not tasted vada curry before, so was very clueless about the taste and outcome.

    She is a great cook and I believe her recipe to T.

    But the garlic, fennel in the curry with the vada along with the flavour of coriander leaves and curry leaves is simply superb.

    You can make use of the leftover masala vadai. The next day it can make you a side dish for your breakfast.

    vada curry
    Vada curry

    Ingredients

    Chana dal/ Kadala paruppu - ½ cup

    Onion - 2

    Garlic - 6 flakes

    Sambar powder - 2 tsp

    Turmeric - ⅛ tsp

    Green chilli - 2

    Curry leaves - 1 sprig

    Coriander leaves - 1 tbsp

    Salt - as needed

    *Leftover masala vadas can be used, use 6 vadais

    To temper

    Oil - 1 tbsp

    Cinnamon - 1 small piece

    Cloves - 2

    Fennel seeds - ½ tsp

    Bay leaf - 1

    Method

    1. Soak dal for 3 hours, drain water and grind to a paste. Add little water while grinding if needed. Cube onion and peel garlic and cut into two, slit the green chillies and keep aside.
    grind

    2. Mix salt accordingly in this and mix well. Make bite sized pakodas/ vada out of it, no need to worry about the shape. Deep fry in oil until cooked.

    fry vada

    3. Heat a pan with oil and season with the items given under ‘To temper’ table. Add fennel seeds lastly and wait until it splutters. Add cubed onion, garlic and fry till golden brown here and there.

    temper vada curry

    4. Add 1 and ½ cups of water, turmeric, sambar powder, required salt and bring to boil.

    boil

    5. Add the prepared vadas and simmer and boil for 5-8 minutes in medium flame.

    add

    6. Boil until the vadas gets soft and gets absorbed well in the gravy. Stir in such a way to mash it if needed to get a thick curry. Garnish with coriander leaves and curry leaves.

    simmer vada curry

    Notes

    • Adding half the salt in the vada and half in the gravy is must. Otherwise the taste wont be homogenous.
    • The key is to get the vadas soaked well in the gravy and get soft. The vada should not be hard. So make sure the vada batter is soft and if you want can add a pinch of cooking soda in the vada batter.
    • Simmer and cook to get the soft texture.
    • Left over vadas works great for this recipe. You can also steam the vadas instead of deep frying. The result wont be changed.

    Serve hot with Dosa the best. Idli also gets matched with this well. I can even eat as such Cool.

    vada curry
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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Aarthi

      July 31, 2014 at 8:58 am

      love this so much, i should try this out and same pinch raji i have the same sambar wali and i posted vada curry in that same wali

      Reply
    2. Kurinji

      July 31, 2014 at 10:20 am

      colorful and tempting vada curry...cute bowls...

      Reply
    3. harini

      July 31, 2014 at 10:24 am

      Nice recipe.i used to grind the tomatoes and add.it gives good colour and thickness.

      Reply
    4. Swasthi B

      July 31, 2014 at 11:32 am

      Wow Raji, Wonderfully cooked. New to something like this

      Reply
    5. jeyashri suresh

      July 31, 2014 at 11:44 am

      Super tempting. Love to have with chapthi too

      Reply
    6. sathya

      July 31, 2014 at 12:30 pm

      nice clicks... its tempting

      Reply
    7. marudhus kitchen

      July 31, 2014 at 2:22 pm

      Lovely recipe and photo's are really tempting

      Reply
    8. Anonymous

      July 31, 2014 at 7:04 pm

      Dosa vada curry. Divine combo:-) like the steamed version

      Reply
    9. Ramya Venkateswaran

      August 01, 2014 at 4:38 am

      healthy version and love to finish the platter there

      Reply
    10. Sathya Moorthy

      August 02, 2014 at 7:11 am

      Great to see my favorite recipe without deep frying..... Gonna try this....

      Reply
    11. Marouane Ramzi

      August 17, 2014 at 7:41 am

      Thanks a lot for sharing this super simple recipe. I tried them and it came out perfectly! 🙂

      Reply
    12. Seema Narayanan

      May 01, 2015 at 12:31 am

      Tried this recipe and it came out well. Thank u for this simple recipe...

      Reply
    13. Seema Narayanan

      May 01, 2015 at 12:31 am

      I tried it and it came out exactely as in the picture shown. Thank u very much for this simple recipe...

      Reply
    14. archu

      September 13, 2015 at 11:35 pm

      Tried this recipe today and it was delicious. loved it! Thanks for the recipe.

      Reply
    15. ARIANA BOUTIQUE

      October 22, 2015 at 6:25 am

      Let I tried its yummy
      My kids likes much n much

      Reply
    16. invisible

      November 14, 2015 at 10:04 am

      Tried your cashew katli came out very well. Thank you so much. Today going to try your vada curry. Wish me good luck.

      Reply
    17. Sathish K

      November 21, 2015 at 6:03 am

      Can v try dis with Pakoda instead of Vada ??? Will t taste d same ???

      Reply
    18. Raks anand

      November 21, 2015 at 6:05 am

      You can try sure, will be sure different. But it will be nice I guess.

      Reply
    19. Aby Senthil

      December 11, 2015 at 11:15 am

      Hi Raji, I've added 1/2 cup thick cocunut milk before switching off the flame. It gives good taste & texture to the gravy.

      Reply
    20. kamalaveni

      February 04, 2016 at 1:15 pm

      Wow it's very colourful and delicious dish.mouthwatering also.very neat and clear pictorial explanation.please give the onion and Tomotto in grams or cup measure.

      Reply
    21. Deepa

      February 17, 2017 at 2:36 am

      Wow.... tried yesterday...turned out reallllyyyy well... thank u pa....

      Reply
    22. Raks anand

      February 17, 2017 at 2:38 am

      Thanks for your feedback 🙂

      Reply
    23. sabna

      July 02, 2018 at 7:39 am

      Is there anything we need to take care to make set dosa using normal dosa batter apart from making it as thick ones?

      Reply
    24. Raks Kitchen

      July 03, 2018 at 6:51 am

      If you are making only dosa with the batter, you can slightly reduce urad dal than we use for idli usually.

      Reply
    25. SUGANYA

      June 22, 2020 at 1:04 pm

      5 stars
      Hi raks, tried this recipe of yours on Saturday, it turned out great and was super yummy.

      Reply
      • Raks Anand

        June 22, 2020 at 2:06 pm

        Thank you so much Suganya 🙂

        Reply

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    Hi, I'm Rajeswari Vijayanand! I am the person behind Rakskitchen, sharing recipes with pictures & videos.

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    Raks anand

    Hi, I'm Rajeswari Vijayanand! I am the person behind Rakskitchen, sharing recipes with pictures & videos.

    More about me →

    Popular

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