Chana Daal Payasa – Mangalore Udipi Style Recipe

Last Updated on April 12, 2021 by Babita

Chana Daal Payasa is a creamy, sweet, vegan Indian dessert made with coconut milk, chana daal, rice, jaggery and cardamom. This payasa or Kheer, is pudding-like, and is popular in some of the Southern States of India.

This recipe for Chana Daal Payasa is local to the Mangalore – Udupi region of Karnataka and is mostly made during the festival of Ugadi.

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What is Ugadi

Ugadi or Yugadi, is a popular festival celebrating New Year in the Southern States of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. Traditionally for people from these States it is a huge deal and preparations for Ugadi begin almost a week before.

Everything that we do during a popular holiday here in US is done during Ugadi for e.g., cooking special food, giving and receiving gifts, charity work at the local temples, buying new clothes, etc. You can read more about this festival on Wiki.

About this Recipe

As with most festivals, my family celebration of Ugadi focused more on food. Chana Daal Payasa was the one dessert that my mom made during Ugadi. It is usually served as a dessert after meal.

Vegan Kheer Recipe

This recipe is a vegan kheer recipe, as no dairy is used. Instead, coconut milk is used as base to make this recipe. Not only is this payasa/kheer a vegan recipe, but it is also considered healthy as it includes a little bit of everything, including chana daal (protein), rice (carbs), jaggery ( unrefined sugar) and nuts (optional).

Other Names for this Recipe

Chana Daal Payasa is known as Chana Daal Kheer in Hindi. It is also known as Akki Kadale Bele Payasa in Kannada. Other common names include Chana Daal Payasam, Kadalai Puruppu Payasam (Tamil) and Senaga pappu Payasam (Telegu) and Madagane (Konkani).

Explaination of Ingredients for Chana Daal Recipes

Chana Daal: is split Bengal gram. On Amazon, it is available as split desi chickpeas. You can also find it easily in any of the Indian stores.

Rice: a small amount of coarsely ground rice is used to add texture and thicken this recipe. You can use any kind of rice.

Coconut Milk: coconut milk is what makes this payasa recipe vegan. I like to use freshly made coconut milk for this recipe. However, if you are really pressed for time, you use canned coconut milk. However, at least for this recipe, I don’t like using them because it has an artificial coconut aroma to it.

Jaggery: is an unrefined product extracted from cooking sugar cane juice. You can easily recognize jaggery due to its golden brown or dark brown color. I like to use Kolhapuri jaggery and you can find those in Indian stores and Amazon. You can substitute it with sugar, however, it won’t have the authentic taste and payasa won’t have the distinctive off-yellowish color.

Powdered Cardamom: is used mostly for aroma. You can find whole cardamom and powder it or you can straight-up use powdered cardamom. Both of these are available in Indian stores as well as Amazon.

Cashews and Raisins: cashews and raisins are added as garnish as well as texture. They are optional ingredients which you can chose to not add.

Prep for Rice and Chana Daal

• Soak rice in some water for an hour. Rinse and drain the water and coarsely grind the rice with 2 tbsp of water.
• Soak chana daal for an hour. Clean and drain the water.

How to Make Chana Daal Payasa

• In a stock pot, add chana daal and rice. Add 3 cups of water; boil it for 12 mins.
• Next, add coconut milk and jaggery. Add 2 cups of water and mix well. Let the payasa cook on medium flame for 20 mins or until the rice is completely cooked.
• Make sure to keep stirring in intervals.
• Add cardamom powder and let the payasa cook for another 5 minutes. Garnish it with chopped cashews and raisins.

You can serve this Payasa in ramekins shown below: