Kitchen Staples You'll Need to Make Diwali Snacks at Home
Pantry and countertop essentials for making small bites to celebrate the festival of lights
By Althea Chang-Cook
A few years ago, I found out from a DNA test that I’m about 19 percent South Asian—from southern and eastern India, results said—and I just had to learn more about that culture I never grew up with. I asked some of my Indian colleagues for their suggestions about how, and the consensus came up with two things I should research: Bollywood and food.
As far as food goes, there’s one major occasion I wanted to learn more about: Diwali, the festival of lights. It’s described by some as just as important to those who celebrate it as Christmas is to Christians.
The occasion celebrates the triumph of good over evil and is observed by a billion Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists across the globe.
“Throughout India and the Indian diaspora, people celebrate holidays such as Diwali with loved family and friends, with the sharing of food as a symbol of unity and a greater sense of family,” says Shereen Bhalla, senior director of education at the Hindu American Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Diwali sweets and other snacks are “traditionally made at home to offer to the goddess Lakshmi to bring luck and fortune,” says Vijayudu Veena, executive chef at the restaurant Jaya in Miami Beach.
If you’re new to making traditional Diwali snacks like I am, whatever the recipes you find with a Google search, such as those shared on the recipe blog Piping Pot Curry, there are a few ingredients you’ll want to have on hand.
Legumes and Nuts
Chickpeas and chickpea flour (also known as garbanzo flour or gram flour) add substance to snacks and are a key ingredient in sweet treats like laddu, fried balls of flour with nuts and spices, as well as savory ones such as sev, a fried noodlelike snack that Veena likes to serve sprinkled with chaat masala seasoning (more on that below).
Lentils (dal), which may commonly be associated with savory dishes in the U.S., are also used in sweet preparations for Diwali, whole or mashed into a paste. Puran poli, a stuffed flatbread with sweetened lentils and mashed jaggery, is a favorite in Jayesh Sunil Shinde’s household. Shinde, an associate product manager at Consumer Reports, is from Maharashtra, on India’s west coast. He says his family in Navi Mumbai ships Diwali snacks to his home in Cedar Grove, N.J. Rashmi Jain, a project manager at CR who grew up in Rajasthan, in north western India, says moong dal halwa, a soft sweet made with lentils, is a favorite.
Nuts such as cashews and pistachios, as well as peanuts, can be found in several Diwali snacks. (For those who are allergic to peanuts, check out our story on ingredients you can use to replace peanuts when you’re cooking at home.)
Potatoes
Potatoes are the base for some popular savory snacks, such as samosas, which consist of potatoes, peas or lentils, spices, and sometimes meat, wrapped up and fried, resulting in a crunchy outside and a soft, flavorful inside.
Golgappa, also called panipuri, are popular snacks during Diwali as well, Bhalla says. They’re small fried spheres with cooked potatoes, as well as chickpeas, onions, and chutneys (sauces or spreads). To eat them, you’d dip them in tamarind water “before stuffing into your mouth with one bite,” she says. And aloo tikkis are pan-fried potato pancakes topped with onions, various chutneys, and sometimes yogurt.
Rice
Several dishes made during Diwali call for rice. That includes kheer, a rice- and milk-based pudding that can be made with nuts, golden raisins, a generous amount of saffron (which tends to be expensive), and rose water.
Shinde is also a fan of flat rice chivda, which is made from toasted rice flakes known as poha, plus a combination of dried fruits, peanuts, and tree nuts.
And Jain grew up eating sweet saffron rice made with long-grain basmati, milk, sugar, fruits, nuts, and spices during Diwali.
Dairy
Lots of sweets made and shared during Diwali contain milk, Chef Veena says. Milk adds a bit of sweetness itself but also contributes to a silky texture. Ghee, which is clarified butter, is a thicker option that adds texture and a rich fragrance.
Spices
Saffron: In addition to imparting a floral, earthy flavor, saffron adds an orangish-yellow color that can make a dish look more appetizing, Veena says.
Cardamom has a nutty but sweet flavor. It can generally be found in the spice sections of grocery stores ground or as whole pods.
Clove and cinnamon may be staples during pumpkin spice season, but they’re also used in a variety of Indian dishes year-round, and in blends such as garam masala. One of my Indian colleagues suggested sprinkling garam masala on dishes such as chicken at home. I also include masala chai in my tea-drinking repertoire.
A savory blend: Chef Veena sprinkles chaat masala, a savory spice blend made with cumin, coriander, fennel, ground ginger, black pepper, other spices, and salt over sev.
Sweeteners
Sugar, of course, is a vital ingredient in sweets for Diwali. You’ll need it for a laddu, one of Chef Veena’s favorites.
Other dishes are sweetened with jaggery, which is made from concentrated cane, date, or palm sugar that hasn’t been separated from its natural molasses the way granulated sugar has.
Many of these sweets can be a bit too much for some palates. “The level of sweetness really coats the mouth,” says CR business analytics manager Amanda Arnold, whose partner is Indian. “I also find that a lot of the serving sizes for the sweets are pretty large, like, imagine eating fudge, but in the quantity of a brownie,” she says.
There are some snacks shared during Diwali that are lightly sweetened, though, such as shakarpara, a fried snack made with common all-purpose flour, which is one of Shinde’s favorites.
A seasonal experiment: Veena says carrot halwa, a dessert traditionally made with nuts and shredded carrots, could be made with pumpkin (or other seasonal squash) in place of carrots, and pumpkin’s natural sweetness could allow you to reduce the amount of sugar you’d need. Just grate the pumpkin, “cook it up and use some cardamom to give it a nice flavor,” swap it in for carrots, and voilà, pumpkin halwa.
Kitchen Gear You Can Use
There can be a lot of shredding and chopping and mixing involved in making your own Diwali goodies at home, and there are a few countertop appliances that can make that work easier.
Stand Mixers
Veena recommends a KitchenAid stand mixer to mix your ingredients, and you can use a pasta attachment to make sev, the fried noodlelike snack. Here are a few stand mixer models that receive high marks in Consumer Reports’ tests.
KitchenAid Classic (275watt) K45SSWH
KitchenAid Classic Plus KSM75WH
Hamilton Beach Professional All-Metal 63240
Blenders and Food Processors
To blend nuts into a paste, which you might need to do for sweets with a fudgelike consistency, you’ll need a blender or food processor that’s up to the task. Veena recommends Vitamix blenders, which are among CR’s top-rated models. Here’s more on the top-rated model in our tests, followed by some top-rated food processor models.
Vitamix 7500
Ninja Professional Plus Kitchen System BN801
Breville Sous Chef BFP800XL/A
Oster Versa Pro Series BLSTVB-104-000 Food Processor Attachment
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