Flawless Light And Crispy Vegetable Pakora
Look no further for easy vegan appetizer ideas! Garam masala and warm spices flavor these flawless light and crispy vegetable pakora.
Table of contents
If you are following a plant based diet or you’re a vegan, you probably have a lot of vegetables in your house at all times. I wind up with a variety of this and that left over that I don’t have a plan for fairly often. These vegetable pakora are great if you’re looking for easy vegan appetizer ideas. One great way to use your extra veggies is making these flawless light and crispy vegetable pakora. Or you can shop for ingredients specifically for this recipe too, nobody can stop you.
Ingredients For This Easy Vegan Appetizer Idea
- vegetables
- chickpea flour
- white rice flour, or corn starch
- garam masala
- cumin
- salt
- chilies, optional
- chopped cilantro, optional
- lemon or lime juice, optional
Chickpea flour makes a great base for our batter, it’s going to give a color and texture that we won’t get with another. Sorry, there just isn’t a substitute other than this if you don’t have a gram or besan flour. Chickpea flour is widely available, and it has a few other uses that might interest you enough to keep it on hand. It can be added to seitan to improve the texture or it can be enjoyed in the batter for a vegan “omelette”.
To make a batter light and crispy with chickpea flour, I tried using some white rice flour I had on hand to lighten things up. Corn starch is what we usually use in the West to enhance the texture of fried batters. Using white rice flour to make a crispy batter is a common addition, especially where rice is more prominent than wheat and corn. Cornstarch will work just as well if that’s what you have on hand.
More links you might be interested in:
Instructions For Making Vegetable Pakora
- Cut the vegetables into uniformly sized strips
- Salt the vegetables and toss well to evenly coat
- Cover and allow to rest in a strainer for at least an hour with the bowl underneath to reserve any liquid
- Lightly squeeze or press the veggies to remove any excess liquid and place in a mixing bowl
Instructions For Flawless Light and Crispy Vegetable Pakora
- Add the dry ingredients to the vegetables in the mixing bowl and toss or stir to combine
- Pour in the water with any amount of salted veggie liquid mixed in depending on desired saltiness, and stir until a medium batter consistency that holds a spoon of veggies together is achieved
Frying Vegetable Pakora
Cook heaped tablespoon sized scoops of batter in oil heated to 350F without overcrowding the fryer for 5-7 minutes or until browned and crisp.
Goes great with a Cilantro Chutney dipping sauce.
Substitutions and Variations
Make onion bhaji with all onion instead of mixed vegetables, and add garlic and curry leaves if you like. Adding sliced hot chiles to any variety makes an instant spicy treat!
More Appetizer Recipes
Here’s a few more easy appetizer recipes for more vegan and plant-based options you’ll enjoy making.
FAQs
Besan or gram flour is a flour of chana dal or split brown chickpeas. Whereas, chickpea flour or garbanzo flour is ground up white chickpeas. There’s a slightly different texture and consistency that makes one more appropriate for the recipe over the other.
No, besan flour is the preferred and correct flour to use. Due to limited availability of besan flour in the West, this recipe is based upon the incorrect use of chickpea flour.
Get the Recipe Flawless Light and Crispy Vegetable Pakora
Ingredients
Ingredients For Flawless Light and Crispy Vegetable Pakora
- 1 pound vegetables cut into thin strips
- 12 tbsp chickpea flour
- 6 tbsp white rice flour
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro, optional
- ¼ cup sliced hot chiles, optional
- 2 tbsp lemon juice, or lime juice, optional
- 1 tbsp garam masala, add more for big flavor
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp garlic powder
Equipment
Instructions
Prepping The Veggies
- Cut the vegetables into uniformly sized strips
- Salt the vegetables and toss well to evenly coat
- Cover and allow to rest in a strainer for at least an hour with the bowl underneath to reserve any liquid
- Lightly squeeze or press the veggies to remove any excess liquid and place in a mixing bowl
Instructions For Making Flawless Light and Crispy Vegetable Pakora
- Add the dry ingredients to the vegetables in the mixing bowl and toss or stir to combine
- Pour in the water with any amount of salted veggie liquid mixed in depending on desired saltiness, and stir until a medium batter consistency that holds a spoon of veggies together is achieved
Frying The Vegetable Pakora
- Preheat the oil to 350F
- Use a tablespoon or medium size scoop for enough batter to drop portions of batter gently into the hot oil
- Flip the pakora over after two minutes and fry for an additional two or three minutes until golden brown
- Remove pakora from the hot oil to rest on a rack or paper towel until cool enough to eat
