Gujarati Khatti Meethi Dal
A wholesome Indian recipe crafted for health-conscious eating: nutritious, delicious, and easy to make at home.
Thin, pourable toor dal balanced with kokum or lemon, jaggery, peanuts and a fragrant temper — the Gujarati thali essential.
The Gujarati thali dal is thin, a little sweet, a little sour and tempered with whole spices. It is meant to be poured over rice or sipped from the bowl. If your dal tastes only salty, this is the version that fixes it.
Ingredients
How to Make It
Cook dal with turmeric and peanuts; mash and thin with water.
Add jaggery, kokum/lemon, ginger and chilli; simmer.
Temper spices; pour over dal. Keep pourable.
Nutrition per serving
* Approximate values per serving
Health Benefits
Light, soupy dal with balanced sweet-sour notes. Peanuts add crunch and a little protein fat.
Toor dal cooked until it dissolves gives a smooth base, and peanuts add a bit of bite. Jaggery and kokum balance each other, so neither needs to be heavy.
Pro Tips
- →Should be thinner than Punjabi dals.
- →Balance sweet and sour carefully.
- →Fresh curry leaves matter.
- →Mash the dal well and thin it with hot water until it runs like soup.
- →Add jaggery and kokum a little at a time and taste after each addition.
- →Let the mustard and cumin pop fully in the ghee before pouring the tadka over.
A calorie note
Most of the calories in this dish come from a few ingredients. For reference, per 100 g: Ghee: about 876 kcal (about 40 kcal per teaspoon); Peanuts: about 567 kcal; Jaggery: about 380 kcal. Measure these with a spoon or scale, because small changes here move the total more than anything else. Values are rounded from USDA FoodData Central and the Indian Food Composition Tables (IFCT 2017), as of 13 Oct 2026, and vary by variety and by table. General information, not medical advice.
Variations
- 1Add drumsticks.
- 2Use tomatoes if no kokum.
- 3Use lemon juice instead of kokum if you do not have it, and add it off the heat so it stays fresh.
Frequently Asked Questions
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