A Short Indian Pantry List for Making Snacks at Home
Most Indian snacks need only a handful of pantry items: chickpea flour, puffed rice, flattened rice, fox nuts, roasted split chickpeas, millet flours, chaat masala, hing, curry leaves, and jaggery. Here is what each one is.
Almost everything you need for Indian snacks comes from an ordinary supermarket. A handful of items are worth a trip to an Indian or South Asian grocer or one online order, and then they sit in the cupboard for months.
Here is that short list, with the name on the Western shelf first and the Indian name beside it, so you can ask for either.
The flours and grains
Chickpea flour (besan, gram flour) is finely milled dried chickpeas and the backbone of the steamed snacks. Puffed rice (murmura, mamra) is light, dry, and unsweetened, not the sugared breakfast cereal. Flattened rice (poha) comes as papery flakes: buy the thin kind for snack mixes, since the thick kind stays chewy.
Pearl millet flour (bajra) and finger millet flour (ragi) are earthy and naturally gluten-free. Both go stale faster than wheat flour, so buy small bags and keep them in the fridge.
The crunchy things
Fox nuts (makhana, lotus seeds) are light white puffs that roast into something between popcorn and a cracker. Roast them until they snap rather than bend. Roasted split chickpeas (daria, roasted chana dal) come already roasted and ready to eat, adding crunch and protein to any mix straight from the bag.
The flavor makers
Chaat masala is the sour, savory blend that makes chaat taste like chaat. It contains black salt, which smells startling in the jar and settles down in the bowl. Read the label, since a few blends carry milk solids.
Asafoetida (hing) stands in for onion and garlic in a tiny pinch. Curry leaves are best fresh and freeze well; they are not the same thing as curry powder. Jaggery is unrefined cane sugar with a molasses edge, and it is still sugar.
Common questions
- What is the difference between puffed rice and flattened rice?
- Puffed rice (murmura) is light and airy like a very plain puffed cereal. Flattened rice (poha) is dry, papery flakes of rolled rice. They are used differently, so buy the one a recipe names.
- Are curry leaves the same as curry powder?
- No. Curry leaves are the fresh, fragrant leaves of a plant used for tempering. Curry powder is a ground spice blend.
- Do I need everything on the list?
- No. Start with chickpea flour and puffed rice, which cover a lot of snacks, and add the rest as you get curious.