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Sabudana Vada Recipe, How to make Sabudana Vada Recipe for fasting

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sabudana vada

Sabudana Vada Recipe with step by step photos – Sabudana vada is one of those recipes that is made during religious fasting (vrat or upvas). I made this sabudana vada for my mother-in-law who observes fasting during navratri.

In the Indian tradition the shravan month and the navaratra or navaratri period are times when many devout hindus fast. The food that is taken during the fast do not contain onions, garlic, wheat products, lentils or pulses. you can check this compiled list of ingredients for navratri fasting.

Sago or Sabudana is a common ingredient that is used in some recipes made during the fasting period. Few of the sabudana recipes on blog which can be made for fasting are Sabudana Khichdi, Sabudana thalipeeth, Sabudana Kheer, Sabudana bhel, Sabudana Tikki, Sabudana pakoras and Sabudana ladoos.

you might also like to check these useful posts for fasting days:
1. 7 arbi recipes for fasting
2. 12 potato recipes for fasting
3. 24 sweets recipes for fasting
4. 80 navratri fasting recipes
5. detailed post covering navratri vrat rules, procedure and recipes (vrat ka khana).

This Sabudana Vada snack can also be made during other times. Its crispy and delicious and can be made as a morning or evening snack. Sabudana Vada is served with sweet curd (yogurt) in Maharashtra and this combination tastes great. To make the sweet curd, you will just need to add some sugar to the curd and mix it. I have shared one more variation of sabudana vada made without potatoes.

Basically, this Sabudana Vada recipe comes from Maharashtra. In Mumbai, one will find many mithai shops selling sabudana vadas. In fact it is a street food in Mumbai and many vendors sell these.

If you are looking for more fasting recipes then do check dry fruits ladoo, vrat ka halwa, kuttu ka paratha, makhana ki kheer, vrat ke chawal ka pulao, jeera aloo, aloo tamatar ki sabzi and kaddu ki sabzi.

Sabudana Vada recipe quick video (1.19 minutes video)

Sabudana Vada Recipe Below:

Sabudana Vada Recipe
5 from 8 votes
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Sabudana Vada Recipe

Sabudana Vada Recipe - Crisp fried patties made with tapioca pearls, peanuts and mashed potatoes. slightly sweet and spiced to taste.

COURSE Breakfast, snacks
CUISINE Maharashtrian, western indian
PREP TIME 5 hours
COOK TIME 30 minutes
TOTAL TIME 5 hours 30 minutes
SERVINGS 4
AUTHOR dassana amit

INGREDIENTS (1 cup = 250 ml)

  • 1 cup sabudana (tapioca pearls)
  • 4 medium potatoes (aloo)
  • ½ cup peanuts (mungphali)
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera) - optional
  • 1-2 green chillies, finely chopped (hari mirch)
  • 1 teaspoon ginger, finely chopped (adrak)
  • 2 teaspoon lime juice (optional)
  • few chopped coriander leaves, (dhania patta) - optional
  • 1.5 teaspoon sugar or as required
  • 3 tablespoon kuttu ka atta (buckwheat flour) or amaranth flour - optional
  • rock salt or sendha namak - a kind of salt used food made during fasts. you could use regular salt if the recipe is not being made during the fasting period.
  • oil for frying

HOW TO MAKE RECIPE

Preparation for Sabudana Vada Recipe:

  1. Soak the sabudana or sago in water for 5 hours at least or overnight. I soaked the sago overnight and in the morning they had become very soft.
  2. Drain of all the water completely from the soaked sabudana.
  3. Boil the potatoes. Peel and then mash them. Mix the mashed potatoes and sabudana together.
  4. On a skillet or in a shallow pan, roast the groundnuts/peanuts till they become crisp. Cool and then coarsely powder in a mortar-pestle or in a dry grinder.
  5. Add the peanuts, rock salt, sugar, ginger, green chillies, coriander leaves and lemon juice. Mix the entire mixture well.

Making Sabudana Vada:

  1. Now take some portion of the mixture in your hands and shape them into flat round vadas or patties. 

  2. Do this till all the mixture is utilized.

  3. Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai. Add a tiny ball made from the mixture.

  4. Fry it on medium flame. If this ball does not break while frying, then you are good to go. 

  5. If it breaks, then add 1 tablespoon of kuttu ka atta (or amaranth flour) again to the mixture and mix well.

  6. Now gently place the sabudana vadas in the oil. Keep the flame to medium while frying. If the oil is cold, sabudana vadas will absorb lot of oil and become soggy.

  7. Add sabudana vadas for frying depending on the size of the kadai. Do not crowd the kadai or pan.

  8. When one side gets golden, then only flip the vadas. Otherwise don't even touch as they might break if not cooked.

  9. Turn over a couple of times so as to fry the sabudana vadas evenly.

  10. Fry the sabudana vadas till they are crisp and golden

  11. Remove the vadas with a slotted spoon. place on kitchen paper towels to absorb excess oil. Prepare sabudana vadas with the remaining mixture this way.

  12. Serve sabudana vada with sweet curd/yoghurt or green chutney. You could also serve sabudana vadas with tomato sauce.

RECIPE NOTES

Few tips for making sabudana vada recipe:

  1. The Sabudana (Sago) has to be really soaked well. Not even a little hardness should be left in the sago.
  2. The water needs to be drained well. Use a seive or a colander to drain the water. The sabudana vada mixture is dry. If there is moisture in the mixture, then you won't get a proper shape of the sabudana vadas and they will become soggy from inside.
  3. The oil has to be neither too hot nor warm. If its hot, the sabudana vadas will burn from outside leaving the inside portion uncooked. If warm, the vadas will absorb oil, making the sabudana vadas loaded with oil.
  4. If you want the sabudana vadas to be crisp from outside, you need to brown them a little more.
  5. You could use roasted groundnuts/peanuts. Only if the peanuts are not roasted, then you need to roast them. If they are skinned, then on roasting the skin becomes flaky and you can remove the skin easily from the peanuts with your fingers.

Lets Start Step by Step Sabudana Vada Recipe:

1. Soak the sabudana or tapioca pearls in water for 5 hours at least or overnight. I soaked the sago overnight and in the morning they had become very soft. Drain of all the water from the soaked sabudana. Depending on the quality of sabudana you can even soak for 2 to 3 hours. When properly soaked, the sabudana pearl, should get mashed when pressed. If you feel some hardness in the center, then soak for some more time

soak sabudana in water

2. Add the mashed potatoes (4 potatoes, boiled, peeled and mashed till smooth), coarsely roasted groundnuts, rock salt, sugar, ginger, green chillies, coriander leaves and lemon juice.

add potatoes and spices to sabudana

3. Mix the entire mixture well.

mix sabudana vada mixture

4. Now take some portion of the mixture in your hands and shape them into flat round vadas or patties. Do this till all the mixture is utilized. Deep fry the sabudana vadas in hot oil till golden brown. Drain Sabudana vadas on kitchen towels to remove excess oil.

fry sabudana vadas in oil

Serve the sabudana vada hot with sweet curd/yoghurt or phalahari chutney or coconut vrat chutney. You could also serve sabudana vada with homemade tomato sauce.

sabudana vada recipe



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{ 61 Responses }

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  2. Hi Dassana,
    I’ve written in earlier on a few occasions praising your recipes. However this time it’s not for telling you how well a particular recipe has come / thanks for sharing the recipe, but to let you know that there seems to be some problem with your website. It takes a very long time to load (sometimes even as long as 5 minutes), and even after refreshing again and again, going back to the google page and trying again, it still does not load. I don’t have this problem with other sites, (including other blogs/ recipe websites I follow), which are loading immediately (in fact before writing to you I checked that first thinking it may be a problem with my internet but it’s working fine for other sites). So it seems to be a problem with your hosting service provider or the website/blog itself. In order to write this message itself I had to wait a long time and refresh a few times before it loaded.

    Just thought I’d drop in and let you know in case you don’t know of this issue.

    Could you please look into it as we don’t want to miss your awesome recipes!

    Thanks,
    Deepa

    Reply

    • hi deepa, thanks for letting me know about this issue. no other readers has yet told us about this problem. also from our end on laptops and mobiles we can easily access the website. i am not sure why this happening at your end. could be your isp provider is blocking the website or some program/app/software in the website. so difficult to find out. it could be a local issue with your isp provider or computer. for me it will be difficult to find out and the server guys are not very responsive and helpful. so i do not know what can be done. anyways thanks for letting me know.

      Reply

  5. Hi I make it every once in every month for my son and hubby as they love it but it never comes soft so can I add rice flour instead of the the flour u added will that make it soft

    Reply

  6. Simple amazing receipes. I always come to your site when I am to try my hands in cooking. I learnt bread making from you.

    Thanks Vishal

    Reply

  8. The Sabudana I have dissolves really fast. How can I prevent that if I want to soak it for that long? Is there a certain brand of Sabudana that’s better?

    Reply

  9. Just like to know my vadas are not being fried well. They are breaking in oil . what’s the reason. Kindly guide me.

    Reply

    • there must be more moisture in the sabudana. the soaked sabudana have to be drained very well of all the water. you could also add some more mashed potatoes to bind the mixture or add some more buckwheat flour or amaranth flour, which in turn will excess absorb moisture.

      Reply

  10. I really love the simplicity of your recipes.
    The pictorial depiction adds such good value that there is no need to read further.
    I refer to your site every time I want to cook veg food esp to impress a guest.
    Thank you

    Reply

  12. I would want to know what is “kuttu ka atta/buckwheat flour or amaranth flour”. I am a Hyderabadi and doesn’t know what we call this here, don’t understand this flour.
    I am eager to try this as it looks so yummy.
    Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

  13. Hi , Can we shallow fry it ? & I think saudana pakora & vada ,are both the same ,know ? Only change of name ! I love sabudana . Had deep fried it earlier ,was thinking if I can shallow fry it this time ? Will it change the taste ?

    Reply

  14. Hi , Had made sabudana vada & kheer yesterday. Wow ! It came out very well & was delicious . In order to keep the moisture dry ,I just roasted it in the pan . And then mixed it with aloo & other ingredients. Everybody loved it .Thanks soooo much .

    Reply

  15. Absolutely gorgeous recipe! Made today and they were super hit… ! finally, my search for a perfect and scrumptious sabudana vada recipe has ended.

    Reply

  17. Mouth watering vadas….they just melt in the mouth!! Made it as a diwali snack and my hubby loved it. He had never tasted them before as they are not made in South India….I used to love eating them in Mumbai with sweet curd….thanks for a wonderful recipe!!

    Reply

  20. I love sabudana vada, but I was not knowing hw to make it. It was my brothers birthday and i tried and made it in the party and seriously all of them liked it…. Because of u dassana i made my broz birthday special… thanks alot!!! 🙂

    Reply

  23. Thanks for all ur detailed recipes. M sure it takes a lot of time n patience with all these step by step click.. Wanted to clarify as to What’s the proportion of ‘soaked’ sabudana to boiled potatoes ?

    Reply

    • i have not measured the soaked sabudana. hence cannot help you in this. as a rule, there should be enough potatoes which help in binding and also make the vadas soft. if the amount of potatoes added are less, then the sabudana vada become crispy.

      Reply

  24. hye dassana,

    i have been following up your recipes.. and trust whatever i made till now following your recipes turned out very nice. one thing i wan to ask when i made sabudana vada i dont knw what went wrong when i started frying the vada in oil they started breaking. please help me out with these.

    Reply

    • i think the amount of mashed potatoes were less. the potatoes help in binding. if you add some singhara ka atta or kuttu ka atta, these also help in binding. did you drain the water very well from the sabudana. there should be no water or moisture in the soaked sabudana. the mixture has to be dry with no moisture.

      Reply