Sindhi Kadhi chawal or Kadhi Chaawar or Sindhi Curry is the favorite dish of our community. This curry is probably the most celebrated signature dish. While Punjabis make besan ki kadhi with dahi/yogurt and pakode/fritters, this is a veggies. Punjabi kadi can be made when you have lots of yogurt left over and have little veggies at home. It is basically, making onion fritters and serving them in a yogurt sauce while this curry uses all the left over raw veggies in refrigerator. We make it with loads of veggies along in a chickpea flour base. It is sour and tangy due to addition of tamarind paste/imli pulp. This curry rice combination is a regular lunch at Sindhi home on a weekend.
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Is Sindhi kadhi healthy?
This curry is vegan and about making most of what you have.Simple dish with addition of about any vegetable you have at home. You need only a handful but everything comes together in a perfect unison. Thus, making it full of nutrition. You can cook it easily in a deep sauce pan. It is also full of proteins due to gram flour. Beans, eggplants, potatoes, peas, carrots moringa. Slightly fry okra and cluster beans and then add it. Tastes divine. You can also make it gluten-free by avoiding heeng or asafoetida in tempering. This recipe is strikingly similar to sambhar of southern India. Imagine two similar dishes prepared 1000s of kms apart. Probably, the only difference being, we add minimal spices to the curry. You can serve it to a large gatherings as much as for small lunches. We also serve it especially during weddings as one of the meals. You will never go wrong serving this gravy dish at luncheons or dinners.
Serve it hot with rice, aloo tuk,arbi tuk papad, khichiya and motichur laddu or sweet boondi.
Ingredients :
Clockwise: Okra/bhindi, cluster beans/gwar, chickpea powder/besan, cumin and mustard seeds, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, curry leaves, oil, tamarind paste, carrots, peas, potatoes, ginger, green chillies, asafoetida/heeng, salt. 
Instructions
- Heat oil in a deep sauce pan.
2. Add chickpea flour/ besan to it. 
4. Mix well with a spatula. Cook until it turns golden brown / light brown. Note: The color will darken after we add tamarind paste to it. 
5. Add turmeric and red chili powder. 
6. Add water and let it come to a boil. 
7. Cut the potatoes into halves and add it to the pot. 
8. Now, add the remaining vegetables like carrots and peas. Mix well. 
9. Add the tamarind pulp to it and stir well. 
10. In another pan, heat oil and sauté the okra. 
11. Add the cluster beans to it once okra is no longer slimy. 
12. Now, add the cooked okra and cluster beans to the kadhi. Mix well. 
13. In a pan, heat oil and temper some cumin seeds, mustard seeds. You may also add a teaspoon of methi dana/ fenugreek seeds. Once they crackle, add ginger, chilly & curry leaves to it. Switch it off and add heeng/asafoetida.
Tip: Omit heeng optionally , if serving a gluten-free meal. 
14. Add the tempering to pot. Stir and let it simmer for few minutes.
Serve hot with sweet boondi, arbi/ aloo tuk , rice and papad.
Read the recipe below:
Sindhi Kadhi Chawal recipe
Equipment
- deep sauce pan
Ingredients
- ½ cup besan or chickpea flour/garbanzo flour
- ¼ cup imli ka paste or tamarind puree
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoon oil for tempering
vegetables
- 2 potatoes
- 100 gm okra
- 100 gm cluster beans
- 1 carrot
- ¼ cup peas
Spices for tempering:
- 1 tablespoon jeera or cumin
- 1 tablespoon adrak or ginger
- 1 tablespoon hari mirch or green chilly
- 1 stalk kadi patta or curry leaves
- 1-2 dried sabut lal mirch or red chillli
- ½ tablespoon methi dana or fenugreek seeds optional
- ½ teaspoon haldi or turmeric
- ½ tablespoon lal mirch or red chilly powder
- namak /Salt as per taste
Instructions
- Heat oil in a deep sauce pan.
- Add chickpea flour/ besan to it.
- Mix well with a spatula. Cook until it is toasted and is light brown in color.
- Add turmeric, red chilly powder to it and mix well.
- Now, add water and salt. Let it come to a boil.
- Cut the potatoes into halves and add it to the pot.
- Now, add the remaining vegetables like carrots and peas. Mix well.
- Add the tamarind paste to it and stir well.
- In another pan, heat oil and sauté the okra.
- Add the cluster beans to it once okra is no longer slimy.
- Now, add the cooked okra and cluster beans to it. Mix well.
- In a pan, heat oil and temper some cumin seeds, mustard seeds. Once they crackle, add ginger, green chilly, curry leaves to it. Switch it off and add heeng/asafoetida. You may omit heeng optionally , if serving a gluten-free meal.
How to make sindhi kadhi (video)?
Serve it love. It is a perfect wholesome meal before a good nap 🙂
Serving suggestion
Serve it with sweet boondi, aloo tuk and arbi tuk as sides along with plain steamed rice or jeera rice. I prefer serving Basmati rice with it as it has a wonderful aroma to it.
What are the different types of kadhi recipes?
You can also make Sindhi tomato curry or Sindhi karhi with tomatoes. We use lentils instead of chickpea flour in another version. Sindhi kadhi with toor dal is good way to feed kids who cannot digest besan easily. Another variation is the Bhatia Kadhi where we make above recipe of Sindhi kadi with curd addition. Besides that are Dahi ki kadhi and Gatte.
- Sindhi tuvar dal kadhi
- Dahi ki kadhi
- Gatte ki kadhi
- Bhatia kadhi
Finally to see more recipe videos click here
Abi says
If i am not mistaken Besan is flour made from Bengal Gram/Channa Daal and not Chickpeas/Kabuli Cholay.
bhavana bhatia says
hi Abi,
Thanks for your query.
There are different varieties of Chickpeas.. one of them is kabula chana, bengal gram is also a variety of chickpeas, hence we refer to besan as chickpea flour.
Thanks