Kale Chaat
A delicious healthy recipe to make this tasty Indian street food - kale chaat is our spin on the more traditional spinach pakoda/fritter. Try our healthy kale chaat recipe to make a tasty snack or BBQ side for the whole family to enjoy.
Category
indian street food
Servings
4
Prep Time
60 minutes
Cook Time
45 minutes
Kale chaat – who would have thought that the humble and nutritious kale could be transformed into such a delicious chaat (Indian street food) with just a simple recipe. And what is even better is that this kale chaat recipe is so healthy, it is baked! You still get all that delicious crispy flavour of the pakoda with my baked version.
We serve this kale chaat with an array of sweet, spicy, tangy chutneys, some healthy baked sweet potato fries and create the most beautiful plate of food that can be enjoyed by adults and kids alike.
Author: Swati
Ingredients
- Kale - 1 cup or 70-80gm
- 1 red onion thinly sliced
- 1 medium potato, peeled and grated
- 1 inch ginger, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 small green chilli, finely chopped (optional)
- Chickpea flour or besan – 5 tbsp
- Cornflour (or rice flour to keep the recipe gluten-free) – 2tbsp
- Ajwain or carom seeds (optional) – 1tsp
- Cumin seeds – 1tsp
- Fennel seeds – tsp
- Chilli powder – 1tsp
- Coriander powder – 1.5tsp
- Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
- Salt – 1.5tsp
- Olive oil – 2tbsp
- Light fry oil spray (or extra oil for greasing baking tray)
- 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and chopped as small cubes or like fries
- Olive oil – 1tbsp
- Salt – 1 tsp
- Plain yoghurt, slightly thinned with water to a runny consistency - 2tbsp
- Tickly Tamarind Chutney - 2tbsp
- Coriander-mint chutney - 2tbsp
- Handful pomegranate seeds (options)
Kale pakoda
Sweet Potato chunks
Toppings
Directions
Kale Pakoda
- Preheat oven to 180deg C fan.
- To make our kale chaat remove any thick stalks from the middle of the kale leaves. This is important as the stalks can be quick thick and chewy. Now roughly chop the leaves into small pieces.
- Add chopped onion, potatoes, ginger and 1/2tsp salt to the kale and set aside for 5 minutes. This will help draw the water out of the kale which will later help bind the dry ingredients.
- In a separate bowl mix the chickpea flour, cornflour, carom seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, coriander powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder and rest of salt. Mix all the dry ingredients well. Now add 2tbsp of olive oil and mix again.
- Now add half of the dry mix to the kale mix and knead with hands. You will find that there is enough moisture in the kale to start making a sticky dough.
- Add the rest of the flour and keep kneading with hands (it can get a bit messy). Do not add water. If the mix feels too dry, leave for another 5 minutes till the salt draws out more moisture from the kale.
- Once the kale and flour mix feels sticky enough to be able to make small balls, slightly wet your palms and start making really small balls of the mix. They don’t have to be perfectly round. In fact it looks nicer if they are rough looking.
- Now in on a baking tray, lay some greaseproof paper and spray all over with the light fry oil spray.
- Lay the small kale dough balls over the baking tray. You may find that you need to wash hands a few times in the middle of making the balls as the mix can get quite sticky.
- Once all the balls are made, spray them again with the oil spray (if not using an oil spray, you can brush them lightly with oil).
- Keep in the oven for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes your kale chaat pakodas should come out nice and crispy.
Sweet potato fries
- Once you’ve put your kale chaat pakodas in the oven, we can start working on the sweet potato fries.
- Mix the sweet potato cubes or sticks with olive oil and sprinkle the salt all over.
- In a flat oven tray, lay greaseproof paper and lay out the fries. They should not overlap and should be laid out flat on the tray.
- Bake along with the kale pakodas. They take about the same time 19-20minutes as the kale pakodas.
Assembling
- The fun part of this kale chaat recipe is in the assembly. Make sure you have the yoghurt, Tickly Tamarind chutney (you can thin this down with water a little bit as well) and spicy coriander chutney at hand.
- In a flat dish start with drizzling half of the yoghurt, Tickly Tamarind chutney and coriander chutney on the base of the platter. I like to do this as the kale pakodas then absorb those lovely chutney flavours from the bottom as well.
- Now arrange the kale pakodas all over the plate and with the sweet potato fries or cubes.
- Now start topping with the rest of the yoghurt, Tickly Tamarind chutney and coriander chutney. Adjust the amount of the chutneys to your preference.
- Top with pomegranate seeds and voila your crispy baked kale chaat is ready to be enjoyed by the whole family.
Recipe Note
Serve this kale chaat with our Tickly Tamarind chutney as a starter for your next barbecue or garden party or just be enjoyed as a healthy snack by the family. It is Vegan and can be easily adapted for a gluten-free version (suggestions in the recipe).