Sarva pindi is a savory flatbread traditionally made with rice flour. It is a vegan and gluten-free snack or breakfast item which is tasty and can be made healthy.

Contents :
What is Sarvapindi
Sarvapindi is a specialty dish from the state of Telangana. There are few shops in the Karimnagar district of Telangana which only sells this item. Though I haven't tried it, I heard it from many people about its taste.
Everyone at our home likes this traditional dish so much and we end up making it at least once a week. As we make this very often, I try to sneak veggies and leafy greens into this dish to make it more healthy.
And trust me, no one can find it out and fussy kids will also enjoy it. This dish is a good and easy way to include veggies into your breakfast.
Detailed steps to make sarvapindi:
Grate bottle gourd and ridge gourd. Add all ingredients to a mixing dish and mix everything without adding any water. If possible rest the flour mixture for 5 to 10 minutes so that water will be released from the veggies.
Now add water little by little and make a dough. Don't add more water, it should be a little hard. By the time we make roti, water will be released from veggies and dough will become soft.
Now take an orange-sized portion of dough and pat it to the kadai as shown in the below picture. Make small holes so that oil penetrates and
Add a few spoons of oil and spread it all over. Now cover the dish with a
Serve Sarva pindi hot or cold!!!
How to serve sarva pindi :
- Sarvapindi goes very well with yogurt and/or freshly churned butter.
- Ghee also compliments this dish well and it's my favorite combination.
- In summers, we eat this with thick mango juice (
aamras ). Yes, you heard it right! Sweet mango juice with spicysarvapindi tastes heaven 🙂 I literally wait for summers to eat this combo 🙂
Variations:
Traditional sarva pindi recipe has only rice flour, chana dal, and spices but as I told earlier, I like to add different veggies to the dough.
The usual vegetable added to this recipe is bottle gourd and then we call the dish as sorakaya sarvapindi at our home.
Apart from bottle gourd, ridge gourd, carrot, beetroot, radish, zucchini will also go well in this recipe. I usually change veggies according to the season.
And whenever you add any root veggies, try adding its leaves as well. Adding leaves increases the taste of the dish and makes it more nutritious. The above picture has radish and its leaves in the sarvapindi.
Other than the above-mentioned veggies, spring onions taste very well in this recipe.
And now coming to the flour, I sometimes use ragi flour(finger millet flour) and rice flour in 1:1 ratio. Rice flour can be substituted with Sorghum flour (
Also with the same dough (excluding veggies and onions), we make puris and deep fry them, called Chekkalu or Pappu Chekkalu in Telugu. We do chekkalu occasionally and mostly during festivals as it is a deep-fried item. As we don't add onions and veggies, these stores well for 15 to 20 days and eat as an evening snack with a cup of tea.
Akki roti, a typical Karnataka dish is similar to this dish and it has fennel leaves which gives the unique flavor to the akki roti.
The traditional sarvapindi recipe requires more oil to cook. The oil has to float so that sarvapindi gets cooked properly and crunchy on the outside.
As we make this breakfast recipe every week at home, instead of following this traditional way to prepare sarvapindi, we make this as chapathi and fry it on tawa using one or two teaspoon of oil. I will write a detailed post on it soon.
Tips and tricks:
- Though the dish has few and common ingredients, the difficult part is forming the shape. Traditional
sarva pindi is shaped on to flat bottom vessel called assarva pindi ginnelu . But I use iron kadai. It is easy to shape the dough on the flat bottomed pan. You can use non-stick kadai as well. - To get the correct shape and crispy
sarva pindi , the dough should belittle hard. - Do not add water all at once. Water quantity depends on flour and added veggies. If veggies are very fresh, they release more water when mixed and so we need to add less water.
Have you tried this recipe? Provide your feedback by giving a star rating and/or leaving comments. And don't forget to share the recipe with others on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter.
Recipe card:
Recipe
Sarva pindi
Ingredients
- 2 cups rice flour
- 200 gms bottle gourd (half of medium-sized gourd) (Optional)
- 100 gms ridge gourd (one medium-sized gourd) (Optional)
- 1 onion (finely chopped)
- ¼ cup chana dal (soak in water for 30 minutes)
- ¼ cup sesame seeds
- 1 tablespoon green chili paste
- 1 teaspoon ginger and garlic paste
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- Salt to taste
- Oil to shallow fry
Instructions
- Grate bottle gourd and ridge gourd. Add all ingredients to a mixing dish and mix everything without adding any water. If possible rest the flour mixture for 5 to 10 minutes so that water will be released from the veggies.
- Now add water little by little and make a dough.Don't add more water, it should be a little hard. By the time we make roti, water will be released from veggies and dough will become soft.
- Now take an orange-sized portion of dough and pat it to the kadai as shown in below picture.Make small holes so that oil penetrates and sarva pindi cooks evenly.
- Add a few spoons of oil and spread it all over. Now cover the dish with lid and cook for around 10 to 15 minutes till it is golden brown color. (No need to flip the sarva pindi and cook other side). Oil should be little more for the sarva pindi to be crunchy on utside and soft inside.
- Serve Sarva pindi hot or cold!!!
Notes
- Chana dal can be soaked up to 4 hours. If soaking for more time, soak it in the refrigerator.
- Amount of dough to make the Sarva pindi depends on the size of your pan.
- Onion and garlic can be omitted from the recipe to make it no onion no garlic recipe.
- While cooking the Sarva pindi, cover with a lid so that Sarva pindi will be cooked with steam and less oil is absorbed.
Recipe notes:
- Chana dal can be soaked up to 4 hours. If soaking for more time, soak it in the refrigerator.
- The amount of dough to make the Sarva
pindi depends on the size of your pan. - Onion and garlic can be omitted from the recipe to make it no onion no garlic recipe.
- While cooking the Sarva
pindi , cover with a lid so that Sarvapindi will be cooked with steam and less oil is absorbed. - As we are adding onion, this will not keep well for more than few hours. If required, you can prepare the flour mixture and refrigerate it for a week.
Naveen
Very yummy.. it’s delicious recipe.
Sravanthi
Thank you 🙂
Sahitya Chepuri
Why it feel burning in the chest after eat sarvapindi ????? It’s always burns on chest y
Sravanthi
Hi Sahitya, I am not a medical person but I suspect it could be because of oil content in this dish. Try eating the dish with curd as a side and also reduce the spice level of the dish. I hope you feel better next time.
Divya
My sarva pindi came out good bt after some time they turned very soft .why? Is there anything I can do to fix it?
Sravanthi
Hi Divya, Have you covered the dish with a lid when it is still hot? In that case, steam will make the sarvapindi soft. Try not to cover it until it is cooled completely. And you can cook for couple of more minutes for the crispier version. Thank you for trying out the recipe.