black, purple and red rice varieties of India | recipe of black sticky rice and coconut cream pudding with mango

We have such a tremendous variety of produce in India thanks to the geographical an climatic diversity through the length and breadth of the country. And I am one of those mad people who collect such produce from wherever we travel.

I often bring even fresh produce in my hand baggage but the suitcases are stuffed with varieties of rice, lentils and millets many a times. A few millet grains tumble out of one of my suitcases whenever I open it for the next travel, thanks to a torn packet once.

But I am also lucky to get many of these produce at the India International Trade fair stalls here in Delhi. I make it a point to go to the state stalls and buy as much as I can carry. And I can carry a lot trust me. In the trade fair grounds you have to carry whatever you buy, a classic shop till you drop situation. The black and purple rice from North East I always get from there.

I got many queries about rice varieties and their availability when I posted this picture last week on Facebook. Thankfully we have started getting these varieties in organic shops almost all around the country, sourcing them locally is the best bet though.

The white rice in the picture is a short grain aromatic variety called Kala namak in eastern UP, the same rice is called Gobindbhog in Bengal and probably Ambe Mohar in Maharashtra. The top right is black rice, bottom right is purple rice and bottom left is red rice from Tamilnadu. The kerala red rice looks a bit different.

Here I am sharing about the black and purple rice varieties from north east India. Both varieties are mostly available hand pounded as these are not industrially produced. The black variety is so rich in pigments that the taste is quite complex due to that. The concentration of anthocyanins in black rice is the highest found in food (higher than blueberries) and it is rich in essential amino acids too.

This is how one of my pigment rich meals looks like. Here I have served the purple sticky rice with beetroot tzatziki, boiled eggs and sauteed spinach with garlic and chillies. Both beets and spinach were homegrown in this meal that I shot 2 years ago.

Apart from such meals my favourite way of using these black and purple rice varieties is to make desserts with them. The rice gets nice and creamy when overcooked and combined really well with both milk (dairy) and coconut milk or cream. The black rice pudding made with coconut cream is the one I love the most. The rice lends a nutty and creamy flavour to the pudding that combines really well with mangoes.

Sometimes I add just enough coconut cream to make a thick setting pudding and sometimes I add more coconut cream to make it creamier to coat the fruit cubes.

Here is how the well set black rice pudding looks like, over a bed of cubed mangoes and some toasted coconut chips.

The creamier version looks like this. Moreish and indulgent, very delicious pudding that you can't resist. I make it without any added sugar and it has never disappointed me. The natural sweetness of the rice and coconut cream combines to make a heavenly dessert.

I even make this pudding with the white short grain rice pictured above, the inspiration of this dessert comes from Thai Mango sticky rice and I have been making several versions of it for so many years.

Black or purple sticky rice just makes it so much more value for each calorie consumed. I wouldn't tell you how many times I made this dessert this season. I tried it with all the mango varieties we could lay our hands on and it tasted great with each one of them.

This creamier version I served to my extended family when we all met this weekend and everyone loved it. I had made two more desserts and only one of them (rice kheer) had little sugar in it and my dad who is a diabetic lapped up the 'no added sugar desserts' happily.

The basic recipe remains like this Thai sticky rice with mangoes, the black or purple rice need about 3 times water to raw rice and I prefer it overcooked. If you keep the rice grains just cooked you might feel a slightly bitter aftertaste which disappears once you overcook them.

Once cooked, just stir in coconut cream (25%fat) and adjust thickness as you wish. For 1 cup cooked rice I usually add 200 ml coconut cream to get a set consistency (after refrigeration). For the creamier pudding I add 500 ml coconut cream to 1 cup cooked sticky rice and whisk well till uniformly mixed.

No sugar is required to sweeten it but you can add if you wish, just take care to preserve the natural sweetness of the rice and coconut cream in this dessert, you wont like sugar to hit your palate first in this case.

Try it without any sugar for the first time and see if you want it sweeter. Trust me you wont feel like having any added sugar in this dessert. May be the mango to sticky rice proportion can change if you want it to be more fruity and that is quite good too.

Thai sticky rice and mangoes gets a new lease with black sticky rice trust me.

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101 gluten free breakfasts : scrambled raw plantains south Indian style | plantain podimas recipe

Raw plantain or kachha kela is one of my favourite ingredients and I always have a couple of them in my fridge. In fact I buy a big bunch if I see nice fresh raw plantain with unblemished skin in the market. I never discard the skin so always make it a point to get fresh skinned plantains.

Kela meti ki subzi, kele aur sem ki subzi are  favourite in winters and I make a chutney with raw banana peels sometimes. Kachhe kele ke kofte is made less frequently though. I make the kababs with them too but haven't managed to post the as yet.

There are two types of raw plantains and no these are not the same variety that we eat as ripe bananas. Plantains taste very different even when they are ripe and I quite like the fritters made with them. In the picture below I have shared the two types we get. The rounded variety with a fat middle part and darker skin is the one that gets a little dry after cooking. The other slim plantains with lighter skin colour and slender tapering ends are tastier and stay soft even after cooking. There is a slight difference in taste too.

The stout plantains are suited more for kababs and koftas and the slender ones for stir fries. But if you get tender plantains then even the stout ones are good to make stir fried dishes. And that is what I did in this recipe.

It so happened one day that I was alone at home and was thinking what to cook for my brunch. I saw Nandita had posted her plantain podimas recipe and I wanted to eat that. Podimas is normally cooked with boiled, peeled and grated plantains but since I wanted to retain the skin and wanted the stir fry to be quick too. After searching and reading a few recipes I came up with an altered recipe that suited me just fine. I actually loved the taste.

ingredients..
(one serving, a 10 minute recipe)

one medium sized raw plantain (3/4 cup when chopped like the picture)
3-4 springs of fresh curry patta
2 broken dry red chillies
1/4 tsp black mustard seeds
pinch of hing (asafoetida)
1/2 tsp urad daal (black lentils skinned)
1/2 tsp chana daal (black chickpeas skinned)
2 tbsp fresh grated coconut ( I used dehydrated grated coconut and re-hydrated it before use)
salt to taste
1 tsp ghee
lime juice to taste

procedure..

The first thing you have to do is lightly peel the plantain skin with a potato peeler so only a very thin layer is removed. If using a farm fresh plantain I would skip this step.

See how I cut the plantain in half lengthwise and then sliced thinly, before chopping small bits of it that resembles grated vegetable. You may want to grate using a box grater.

Then heat the ghee, add hing, mustard seeds, lentils and red chili in that order and let them all become aromatic.

Add chopped curry patta and fry for a second or two. Now add the chopped or grated plantain along with salt and stir fry for about 3-5 minutes or till it cooks.

Add the grated coconut, lime juice to taste and mix well, cook for a minute and serve immediately.

This plantain or raw banana podimas is a great substitute of poha or upma kind of breakfast. I had a glass of buttermilk with it and it was a very satisfying meal that kept me full for many hours.

Did you know raw plantains have resistant starch that makes this vegetable a very low glycemic index and that it is prebiotic too?

This breakfast is supplemented with good fats, great variety of fiber, complex carbs and yes even some protein. Add some sesame seeds if you want a little more protein in this meal.

I must tell you raw banana podimas is served like a subzi or side dish with Indian meals of rice and sambar etc. Converting it to a breakfast dish may work for you too. And mind it, this is a 10 minute breakfast recipe.

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Mishti Doi recipe from scratch | a sweetened yogurt with caramelised milk flavour | Calcutta style Mishti Doi

I am so glad I started making yogurt once again. Dahi as we call yogurt, is an everyday thing and we were generating a lot of plastic cups apart from relying on a dahi that was not real.

Making dahi at home gave way to collecting the clotted cream from milk and processing it to make ghee too sometimes. But we consume full fat milk and yogurt everyday, the clotted cream (malai) is collected rarely so ghee making is not too frequent, I would like it more often as it gives fresh real buttermilk as a side product that I love.

I will share the ghee making process soon, because home made ghee is the best. Not that I don't buy any from the market.

When I posted the home made yogurt procedure some time ago many of you asked for a Mishti Doi recipe too. Mishti Doi is a popular sweetened (caramelised) yogurt from Bengal that has become popular all over the country.

To say the truth, I used to make Mishti Doi very frequently till my yogurt making habit suffered and I resorted to Mother Dairy. I had even posted a Mishto Doi recipe on Banaras ka Khana blog. I must tell you we both love the Mishti Doi from Mother Dairy and that was one reason I stopped making it.

But when many of you wanted a Mishti Doi recipe and  Prasad Np and Sushmita reminded me a few times to share it I had to make it again and click pictures, reason enough to share again. The older Mishti Doi recipe uses condensed milk and is way too sweet for me.

I made it twice with 2 slightly different methods and sharing both of them with my notes on taste and texture.

recipe of Mishti Doi with palm sugar 

ingredients 

1 liter milk (full fat 6-7%)
3 sachets of palm sugar (18 gm)
2 tbsp fresh yogurt for culture, preferably hanged

procedure...

Reduce milk over medium flame till it becomes 500 ml. Cool down till it becomes lukewarm to touch. About 45 C.

Add the palm sugar and the yogurt and whisk well till the milk gets frothy. Use a wire whisk to do this and whisk vigorously. This helps emulsify any fats that may clot at the surface when the yogurt is set.

Now strain and pour in the earthen pot or a ceramic or glass jar. Keep in a warm place for 4-5 hours or till set and smells like yogurt.

Slow reduction of milk naturally caramelizes the sugars in milk (lactose) making the colour brownish, in this recipe a little color is enhanced by the palm sugar too. I used very little palm sugar as we eat mild sweet desserts so the flavours of the palm sugar are not too prominent. This mishti doi is quite delicately flavoured and mild sweet.

The creaminess is lesser because of less fat content. The sweetness is mild and flavourful due to the palm sugar.

Thanks Sushmita for the Palm sugar you brought from Thailand, we are using it lovingly :-)

recipe of Mishti Doi with caramelized sugar 

ingredients...

1 liter full fat (6-7%) milk
3 tbsp sugar (45 gm)
3 tbsp fresh cream (45 ml)
2 tbsp thick yogurt for culture

procedure...

Reduce the milk by simmering it over medium flame till the volume becomes half. Cool till it becomes lukewarm to touch.

Meanwhile, caramelise the sugar. To do this, add 1 tbsp water to a flat base frying pan, add the sugar and place the pan over high heat. Keep rotating the pan so the sugar dissolves quickly over heat and starts getting brown at the edges. Keep rotating so the sugar doesn't burn at one spot, the sugar melts and gets browned within a minute or so, taking the consistency of honey. Now pour this into the cooling milk. Stir to dissolve.

Once the milk is lukewarm, add the cream and yogurt and whisk well till frothy. Strain and pour into desired pot or individual serving pots. Keep in a warm place till the yogurt is set.

This one will be more creamy and sweeter. When you use caramelised sugar to get the colour you can't do with light sweetening. This one was not too sweet but just like the Mother Dairy one.

Remember milk has some sugar too, which makes it sweeter when milk is reduced.

Too much sugar would prevent setting of the yogurt and will spoil the taste of yogurt. You wont want sugar to hit your palate first. 

You can add some saffron or cardamom while whisking in the yogurt culture, but I like it plain. We sometimes have it with toppings of nuts or dried fruits or even shredded aam papad.

Srikhand is another yogurt based dessert from Maharashtra which is made by whisking hung yogurt so much that it becomes creamy and smooth. Srikhand can be flavoured with fruits, spices like cardamom and saffron etc too to be served as a dessert, but plain sweetened Srikhand is eaten with poori too I got to know. I have never tried and I don't intent to either.

Mishti Doi always is a proper dessert, sometimes served with a rasgulla dipped into it. The first time I ate a rasgulla dipped in Mithti Doi was at the wedding of Arvind's Bengali friend in Banaras about 2 decades ago. We were not married back then and I remember I was being treated to all sorts of good mithais and mithai combinations because G's father was very fond of Arvind and me.

Making you eat more mithai indicates more love in our country :-) It is well worth gobbling all that mithai if it is good old Rasgulla and Mishti Doi served together. They make a great combination.

Try it sometime and let me know.

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buffet lunch at NYC, Radisson blu Plaza after a relaxing spa session at R The Spa

Last couple of years have been so hectic with so much travel and work I started craving to be home with a relaxed mind. The garden has been suffering and the overall management of home and kitchen suffers too when I travel so much. Being at home for more than a month now feels like a luxury sometimes, can't imagine I used to crave for traveling not too many years ago.

So I am enjoying being at home right now, doing things at my pace and taking a walk in the garden more often, even though I rarely actually work in the garden these days. But that will start too as I can feel my hands itching more often. I have been overworked for so long I was neglecting my personal time too.

So 2 weeks ago when I got an invite from Radisson blu Plaza for a weekend spa session I didn't hesitate to go and check how it is. All with a good mind to book myself a good spa session for myself as a birthday treat later this month if I like the experience. The last spa session I took was last year though I treat myself with foot reflexology regularly.

R The Spa is actually a luxury spa with many treatments to suit your requirement, we felt really relaxed after a session that lasted couple of hours. The therapists are perfectly skilled at their work and make you feel completely comfortable and relaxed. I am definitely booking it again as a gift to myself.

We went to the multi cuisine restaurant at the hotel after the spa session for lunch. This restaurant has live kitchens and extensive spread on the counters, a very vibrant restaurant where you are spoilt for choices. This is an all day restaurant with an exhaustive buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The best thing that I liked was the spread of salads. There are larger platters of salads too but the small single serving bowls of salads are very very convenient. You don't have to dig out things from a large platter where other guests have excavated valuables, a mini salad neatly arranged in a small bowl is ready to be devoured in it's totality. This way you feel like trying many salads available on the buffet and I liked quite a few of them.

Pickled onion rings with grilled courgettes, prawns with passion fruit salsa, grilled chicken with tomato salsa and a slice of avocado, prawns with mango salsa and pomegranate were some of my favourite salads in the single serving bowls.

I tried a grilled mushroom salad, bacon wrapped prawns and Amritsari machhli too and everything was perfect. Amritsari machhli is a fish fry with a besan batter infused with ajwain and red chilly etc.

I rarely like besan batter fish fry but this Amritsari fish fry is so good you feel like having second and third helping, of course with loads of green salad on the side.

This thyme infused grilled chicken wings was also good.

NYC at Radisson blu Plaza is the place where you can stick to your diet regime whatever you are following, I ate loads of salads or all types and had some Thai green curry later. Thai green curry is one of the best in town thanks to Chef Yenjai Suthiwaja from Neung Roi. Arvind tried some Meen moilee and Rogan josh and liked each of them.

And yes, don't forget to enjoy the Figs and walnut ice cream there. I rarely eat ice creams but this one is really good, worth each calorie consumed.

On Saturdays The Pastry Shop at the hotel has been conducting baking classes, we got a glimpse of that too. We did not have the time to attend the class but Chef Qureshi was teaching Macaroons and Tiramisu when I peeped in.

You could go and attend one of these classes if you want to learn baking authentic desserts. Chef Qureshi was sharing how all five star hotels use good quality chocolate only and how this category of desserts have become more and more popular in the last decade or so.

The fruit bread from The Pastry Shop is so good it feels like home baked pound cake studded with fruits and nuts.

I haven't been baking breads and cakes for very long but this bread made me feel like baking some really soon. Stay tuned a nice healthy cake is on the way.

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lunch boxes for adults : assembling lunch boxes if you are a rice eater and announcement of the giveaway

With this lunchbox series I got to learn that there are many people who like eating rice in their lunch boxes too. Most people in north India prefer a roti subzi kind of lunch box meal but an occasional rajma chawal, chhole chawal or tahiri is not uncommon.

I love my rice too by the way, and I find it way lighter than the rotis for a meal. Personally rice makes me satiated faster and I need very small amount on my plate. For everyday meals even roti is needed in small serving as we make multigrain rotis always and those are quite filling too.

I observed in some regions rice is such a staple that the plate is full (*read heaped) of rice with just a little amount of vegetables and lentils or meats. All those who have grown up eating that kind of meal find it really tough to balance a rice based meal in adult (*read desk bound) life.

When you are young and active, play some sports you can have a lot of rice and other starches but once you are desk bound, office going and sitting long hours on a chair you better mind your rice and roti both.

So here are a few lunch boxes with rice meals where about 2-3 tbsp of cooked rice is used to make a satisfying filling meal. Balanced rice meals for a desk bound adult, eat more if you run marathons.

All these lunch boxes are gluten free by default.

1. Eggs and vegetables fried rice...

This kind of lunch box is made in my home when in a hurry. Leftover rice (2-3 tbsp per serving) is used to make it a 10 minute meal.

For 2 servings fry 1 cup finely chopped cabbage, 1 cup chopped onions along with chopped green chillies (or capsicum too) and 1 tbsp butter or ghee. Add slat and pepper when the vegetables are translucent, break 3-4 eggs and scramble lightly. Add reheated (in microwave or steamed on the other burner) or freshly cooked rice and mix well, fluffing up the rice as you mix. Add chopped coriander greens or rocket leaves ( I used rucola from garden) or spinach leaves and pack. Some pickle or raita is good to pack along. 

Find karonde ki subzi recipe here.

2. Methi matar paneer tahiri for lunch box...

This Tahiri is a 15 minute meal. One of those meals where you just dump everything together and make a tasty meal, suits me in the mornings when I get up really late.

Two-three tbsp uncooked rice (rinsed), a cup of finely chopped cabbage, 1/4 cup dry fenugreek leaves (these are home grown and sun dried but use kasoori methi if you don't have this), 1/2 cup frozen peas, some paneer cubes (I use about 3/4th of a 200 gm pack), salt, pepper, cumin seeds, turmeric powder and 1 tbsp ghee is dumped into a pressure cooker. 3/4 cup water is added and the mix is cooked till the first whistle blows. Cool, open the lid and pack along with raita/pickle and yogurt or buttermilk. 

It is better to pack some kachumber type salad and pickle with this one.

3. Lemon rice with millet for lunch box...

This lunch box takes about 30 minutes to assemble.

Barnyard or Prosso millet is cooked just like rice, then tempered with ghee, asafoetida, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and loads of chopped curry patta. Turmeric is added to the tempering along with chilli, then it is mixed with the cooked millet, seasoning it well. Add loads of lime juice to make it as tart as you wish.

I packed a quick vegetable stir fry and some karonde ki subzi with it along with roasted peanuts to sprinkle over the millet meal. Buttermilk is a must with this.

4. Multigrain khichdi for lunch box...

Earlier I used to have these multi grain khichdi for lunch almost 3-4 times a week. Now I manage about once a week and sometimes the husband also agrees to have it. He generally doesn't like khichdi but those who love khichdi find it really tasty.

This multi grain khichdi is made with 1 tbsp each of Red Kerala matta rice, barnyard millet, urad daal, chana daal and masoor daal along with 3 cups of chopped marrow and the usual khichdi seasoning and tempering. I make it a point to have a vegetable mash with it, parval ka chokha fits the bill in summer months. Karonde ki subzi makes it delicious.

5. Dal chawal meal in a lunch box...

I crave for hot daal chawal meals sometimes. I have grown up eating dal chawal almost every single day and whenever I manage to make dal chawal with some bhujia I feel really happy. This is a rare lunch box for both of us but we love it a lot.

Peeli daal cooked with arhar (pigeon pea) sourced from I Say Organic is so good to taste as it is unpolished and some of the husk is still attached, giving it a earthy taste. For quick meals I just pressure cook the daal with salt, turmeric powder, pinch of asafoetida and little ghee and serve it without tempering with a little more ghee.

For lunch box I mix the daal chawal and add some bhujia on the side. Kachhe kele ki bhujia or parval ki bhujia is favored with our daal chawal meals. Some diced cucumbers and yogurt make this meal light yet satisfying.


6. Curry and rice for lunch box with lotus stem curry...

This is bhien ki besan wali subzi (lotus stem in chickpea flour spicy gravy) which has become a favourite and we like it even for cold meals.

Topped over plain boiled rice, a generous amount of this subzi makes a delicious meal if you love curry and rice.

7. Curry and rice lunch box with ridge gourd curry...

This would become one of your favourite meals too trust me. The Bengali jhinge posto curry is one of the most favourites of mine. The gravy is made using poppy seeds paste but you can make it using mixed seeds (melon and sunflower seeds) paste too if you don't get poppy seeds in your part of the world.

Plain boiled rice and this protein rich curry is good enough, I packed a boiled egg salad with it just in case.

8. Curry and rice lunch box with marrow chaman kaliya (Kashmiri paneer curry)...

I love chaman kaliya and have learnt to add marrow to it to make it a one pot curry. This way I don't need to cook or serve any other greens on the side. Poured over plain boiled rice this curry tastes great even when cold. I love loads of this curry with a little rice. Nothing else is needed.

Chaman kaliya is made using either milk or whipped yogurt so I don't serve yogurt with it. It is a complete meal in itself. Will share the recipe soon and link it here.

9. Cabbage and sesame fried rice for one pot lunch box ..

This is another 10 minute meal if you have the chopped cabbage and spiced sesame powder. Saute loads of chopped cabbage and chopped onion along with some curry leaves, then add the sesame spice powder and cooked rice. Mix well and pack.

10. Chhole chawal and rajma chawal meals in lunch box...

I can't sign off this post without mentioning my absolute favourite rice meals. Rice and beans are popular in many parts of the world and cooked in different ways. Chhole chawal and rajma chawal are favourites since childhood. We like is spicy.

I like serving some mashed boiled vegetables or steamed vegetables with chhole chawal, and parval ka chokha appears once again.

With rajma chawal there is okra stir fry and cucumber onion pineapple raita.

Note that the portion of chhole and rajma is more compared to rice and the side serving of vegetables is also generous. Making the meal balanced is not that difficult.

Balance it in the next meal if you missed something in this meal I say.

This lunch box series was quite exciting for me. Yes a lot of work also has gone into it, I would never have clicked pictures early in the morning after preparing lunch boxes and packing off the husband to office.

Although all the lunchbox pictures are shot in a couple of minutes before fitting the lid on, I did make some effort to take those to a well lit area and reflect the light too. It was good fun. I wanted a post on snack boxes too but we have run out of time as I had promised to announce the Giveaways in July last week. I am doing so just in the nick of time.

So the winners for the giveaways of this lunch box series are ..

1. The Tupperware steamer goes to Suranga Date
2. The three layered handpainted lunch box from ToveIndia goes to VJ Sharma 
3. Two sets of the steel containers with plastic lid go to Piyush Verma and Nirupama Sunder 
4. A set of two glass bottles fit for carrying buttermilk goes to Navneet

Please provide your mail id in a week so I can inform you about the giveaway if you are reading this. I assume you follow my blog to get this notification too. I will wait for a week before doing another draw to chose another winner if you don't claim yours.

Thanks you for being with me on this journey. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I will keep sharing ideas about lunch boxes whenever possible, your feedback is always very encouraging.

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lunch boxes for adults : how to pack salad meals and one pot meals in lunch boxes

Here I am with more lunch box ideas and more pointers towards how to pack balanced meals in lunch boxes. The ongoing lunch box series has been immensely satisfying and fun, I kept getting messages, mails and comments on the blog saying how useful you all are finding it. Many of you shared your ideas of lunch boxes too, thank you for that as it helps other readers too who struggle with preparing lunch boxes healthier.

Salad meals in a lunch box work wonderfully if you include your favourite ingredients and take care of the textures too. Fruits, leafy greens and steamed vegetables make great salads but when making it a meal one needs to take care of a few things to make it a balanced meal.

Some useful pointers for lunch box salad meals...

1. Include seasonal fruits or vegetables to make these salads. out of season is not worth.
2. If using raw leafy greens in the salad make sure they are organically grown or home grown.
3. Use a vinaigrette dressing or a yogurt based dressing if the salads is being packed in a lunch box for 3-4 hours to stay. If packing cucumber batons or carrots etc on the side you can drizzle some vinegar to keep them from fermenting in summer months. 
4. Add pickled salads to fresh ingredients to toss new salads everyday. This way the salad keeps well for a few hours as pickled salads have some residual vinegar in it. 
5. Apart from the fruits and vegetables, it is good to add some source of protein in your salad. Lentils, beans, nuts, seeds or paneer cubes work really well to supplement a salad with protein. If you eat nonveg you can add boiled eggs, tuna flakes or poached chicken etc to make a filling balanced salad. Quit industrially produced sausages, home made sausages, prosciutto and bacon, ham etc are great. 
6. Hung yogurt or fresh cheeses also make the salads balanced and tasty. But you can use any good quality cheese you have access to. 
7. Make stir fry salads with the vegetables that can't be eaten raw. It helps to eat more salads that way. Pumpkin salads are my favourite. 
8. Chickpea salads are the most versatile. Just keep some boiled chickpeas handy in the fridge and toss a salad when in a hurry. 
9. Stocking some paneer, some cooked beans of any type, some poached or grilled chicken, some tuna flakes etc saves a lot of effort from assembling salad meals or lunch boxes. 
10. Stocking some roasted seeds and nuts also saves time. Keep them refrigerated if making a bigger batch. 
11. Plan shopping of fresh produce like vegetables, fruits and leafy greens weekly so you have good options to prepare balanced meals always. Salads or otherwise.
12. Some salad dressings can also be prepared and stocked in glass bottles. This sesame based dressing is my favourite to stock, others I just whisk last minute.
13. If you have some dips in the fridge you can just cut wedges or batons of vegetables and fruits, rinse them with dilute vinegar and pack with any of the dips or even plain peanut or other nut butters in the lunch box.
14. Be very careful with raw salads during summer months and rainy season I repeat. Use a vinegar based dressing or just go for stir fry or steamed salad options. Some pasta salads can be cooked the one pot way too.

And now I am sharing 7 lunch boxes with salads and how I like to pack them..

1. Chickpea, paneer and pumpkin stir fry salad.. 

This one takes 15 minutes to make if you have pumpkin, boiled chickpeas and paneer in the fridge. Just pan grill thick pumpkin slices with salt, pepper, garlic slices, thyme and little butter about 5 minutes each side and then chop them in cubes.

Now add cubed paneer, chickpeas and a bit of lime juice to the same pan and toss them all together lightly. Pack in a lunch box. Yogurt is good to pack with this. 

Mango was packed with it for a snack or dessert serving. It does make a lavish lunch box for sure.

2. Chickpeas, paneer and potato salad...

This chickpea salad takes just 10 minutes to assemble if you have a well stocked fridge.

Boiled chickpeas, boiled cubed potatoes, cubed paneer, sliced olives, onions and rucola leaves make this salad quite flavourful. I added mustard vinaigrette and some sun dried tomatoes to make this salad texture rich.

Just take care the chickpeas are boiled soft when you make such a salad. Hard boiled chickpeas make such salads feel too dry sometimes. Have bitten by hard chickpeas trust me.

3. Okra stir fry and chickpeas salad...

This one takes 20 minutes to cook. This is the kashmiri spiced okra, a much repeated recipe in my home and I do have it as a salad too. If you don't have okra as a salad you must try once and see how you get converted.

So stir fry the okra, empty in a lunch box and then quick stir fry the boiled chicpeas too in the same pan with the residual spices clinging to it. Pack in the same box or keep it separate.

Plain yogurt is what I prefer with it. Try this combination and tell me how it was.

4. Cucumber, peanuts hung yogurt salad...

This one is a 5 minute job on the kitchen counter if you have some hung yogurt handy.

Peel and chop cucumbers in bite sized pieces, season with whatever you like, I added flax seeds dry chutney powder, top with hung yogurt and then sprinkle some chopped roasted nuts or crushed roasted peanuts. 

I had packed some bread croutons with this salad in case I feel like having them, I did not need them with this yummy salad. One of my absolute summer favourite salad.

5. Pear rucola salad with walnuts...

Another 5 minute lunch box for you if you love salads or for those days when you need a lighter lunch box.

This is a frequently repeated salad too, the recipe of pear rucola salad was shared earlier but I do keep changing it a bit every time I make it. Any nuts and seeds are suitable for this one.

 Not to forget yogurt with it of course.

6. Tuna and potato salad with beans 

This one takes about 10 minutes to cook. This is a stir fry salad as I like the potatoes of this season to be a bit more flavorful. Winter potatoes will be used directly (boiled and halved or sliced) but I like sauteing them with mustard oil (or olive oil), some salt, pepper, garlic powder and chilli flakes for flavour.

Added steamed beans (quick parboiled) and flaked tuna (from tin) and tossed well, the salad goes straight to lunch box.

Some cucumber batons and yogurt with this is a better idea.

7. Chicken, mushrooms and green beans salad ...

I usually get some chicken legs, simmer them for about an hour on low flame along with some spring onion and bay leaf etc and make shredded chicken with it. Chicken breast can also be used but it gets dry very easily in a lunch box. 

The chicken meat is chopped into bite sized pieces, the bones are further simmered to make a rich stock for a curry or soup and everything is reserved separately, refrigerated for later use. 

This way the salad takes about 15 minutes. Saute some sliced onions and chopped beans to cook them lightly, retaining the textures. Add the mushrooms and saute some more, add cooked chicken and saute some more till flavours are absorbed. Pack.

I used whole red chilies, Chinese five spice powder and garlic powder to make it flavourful but you can add just anything you like. I would like a few cucumber batons with this one too but this salad was made the day we had returned from travel so there was nothing fresh in the fridge.

This chicken and purple cabbage salad can be a great lunch box salad too.

During summers my meals revolve around freshly tossed salads and watery vegetable stews as my tolerance to heat is quite low. Adding loads of vegetables is my way to make meals hydrating.


I love one pot meals too as my comfort food at home, a hot bowl of khichdi or a freshly tossed salad is my idea of a comfort meal. I can have my khichdi with just a drizzle of ghee and a glass of buttermilk on the side but somehow I find packed lunches need a bit more to it as the food changes a little after 3-4 hours while it stays packed.

My one pot lunch boxes will be the ones that are hydrating type, do not feel dry to eat after 3-4 hours and have some textures in it.

Here are 5 one pot meal lunch box ideas, 4 of them pressure cooker meals...

1. Soba noodle cold salad.... 

Soba noodles get cooked fairly quickly and cooked soba noodles refrigerate well too.

Add some sauteed assorted vegetables with your favored seasoning and toss it with cooked soba noodles. Add some chopped boiled eggs on the side and make a balanced filling meal.

My ratio for this soba noodle salad is 40 gm raw soba noodle per serving and 200 gm assorted vegetables. I added loads of garlic and salt and pepper only to this cold salad and it was an absolutely delicious meal.

2. pressure cooked lentil and vegetables stew...

This one a strictly one pot meal, cooked in pressure cooker and packed directly into the lunch box.

Chopped cluster beans (guwar) and cubed pumpkin is pressure cooked along with a tempering of chopped chillies, ginger and garlic, boiled chickpeas are added once the vegetables cook, some amchoor powder is added too and a delicious meal is ready to be packed.

You might like to add tomatoes to this one, I like amchoor a lot with chickpeas and pumpkin but lime juice could also be a good choice.

Musk melon and yogurt was packed with this meal to break the monotony. I know the stew looks drab but I love this kind of meals.

3. One pot whole wheat spaghetti pasta...

Whole wheat pasta takes long time to cook so I have devised a way to make it quick in the mornings.
Pressure cook 40-50 gm pasta per serving with about 200 gm water and salt (one whistle and 5 more minutes if cooking 2 servings).

Add 1 tbsp butter, minced garlic, frozen peas and chopped mushrooms once you open the pressure cooker and toss and cook till the peas get soft, takes about 3-4 minutes. Add herbs of choice and pack with boiled eggs or shredded chicken.

I had packed mango yogurt with almonds and chia seeds but it was not eaten, the whole wheat noodles are quite filling.

4. Palak wali chana daal with paneer...

Yes it makes a nice one pot meal too. Just pressure cook chana daal with loads of spinach in pressure cooker, add tempering of your choice and small cubes of paneer, simmer for a couple of minutes and it is ready. Check out chane ki daal paneer wali to find a detailed recipe. Chane ki daal bathue wali is also a base recipe for this one.

Some kachumber salad and buttermilk will be good with this, or just make a raita.

5. Millet risotto for lunch box..

I cook with millets a lot but for lunch boxes they get used only when I make dosa or idli or for multigrain rotis and breads. Direct cooking with millets is more for hot meals but a risotto works fine for lunch boxes too.

This one is a barnyard millet and carrot-pumpkin risoto with rosemary garlic. This risotto is cooked in one step, no addition of stock or wine but the flavours of rosemary and garlic make this nice.

For 2 servings cook 100 gm barnyard millet with double the amount of water, add a cup of finely chopped pumpkin, 1/2 cup grated carrots and 1/4 cup grated potato to the simmering risotto along with salt and pepper. Add chopped rosemary, garlic and 1 tbsp butter and cook till millet grains get soft and it reaches risotto consistency, adding water if required. Add grated Parmesan, mix well and pack.

I packed a mango, balsamic preserved cherries and cashew nut salad with it fearing the husband might not like it but he loved it.

Tupperware lunch boxes are quite convenient for this kind of meals as they are completely leak proof. But use them only when the meals do not need reheating. I find this set of lunch boxes useful for my requirements.

And here is another giveaway for you all along with a few more that I announced for the lunch box series.

A set of brightly coloured steel lunch boxes or multipurpose containers with plastic fitting lids (hopefully great leak-proof too), is up for another giveaway. Just write about your lunch box, how you like them and how you are finding this series too.

There is a nice Tupperware steamer, a hand painted steel lunch box, a couple of glass bottles up for giveaways too in this series so please comment here and enter a chance to win one of these.

Please write your mail id too, I will be shipping these beauties to any Indian address.

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