Capsicum Raita

Capsicum raita recipe is a spiced flavorful raita made with slightly sautéed capsicum (bell pepper), herbs and spices.

Making raita is always easy. Sharing one more raita variety made with capsicum or green bell pepper or Shimla Mirch. This is a South Indian style raita and one I make at times.

The raita has the lovely flavor of capsicum and tastes very good with any meal like roti-sabzi or even dal tadka and rice combo. In fact you can even serve this capsicum raita with plain paratha, aloo paratha & gobi paratha.

Green bell peppers taste so good in this raita recipe. For a mellowed flavor of capsicum you can use yellow or red bell pepper.

Sometimes you just have one capsicum in your kitchen and you don’t know what to do with it. Try this raita recipe and I am sure you will be happy you made it. It is a good dish to use that one last bell pepper that you have.

For a dairy free alternative, you can use cashew curd or almond curd. Another side dish you can make with capsicum is this Capsicum Chutney.

How to make Capsicum Raita

Preparation

1. Rinse and finely chop 1 small capsicum (green bell pepper). Also peel, rinse and finely chop 1 small onion. Keep aside. Chop 3 to 4 curry leaves too.

2. In a mixing bowl, take 1 cup fresh curd (yogurt). For making curd at home you can check this link – How to make curd.

3. Whisk curd till smooth. Keep aside.

Sautéing capsicum

4. Heat 2 teaspoon oil in a small pan. add ½ teaspoon mustard seeds and let them crackle. You can use any neutral tasting oil.

5. When the mustard seeds start crackling, add chopped onions and chopped curry leaves. You can even add 1 green chili or 1 dry red chili while sauteing.

 6. On a low to medium heat, stirring often sauté the onions for 1 to 2 minutes.

7. Then add chopped capsicum.

8. Mix capsicum very well with the onions.

9. Sauté until the capsicum are half done with some crunch in them. This takes about 6 to 7 minutes on a low heat.

TIP: We do not want the capsicum to be cooked all way through. Half crunchy capsicum gives a good texture and tastes also fabulous here.

10. Then, switch off the heat and add ¼ teaspoon red chili powder, ¼ teaspoon cumin powder and salt as per taste.

We are switching off the heat, so that the ground spices do not get burnt. And don’t worry, the ground spices cook nicely with the residue heat of the pan.

11. Mix well.

Making capsicum raita

12. Remove the pan from the stove top and pour the capsicum mixture in the whisked yogurt.

13. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves (cilantro).

14. Mix everything very well.

15. Serve capsicum raita with any of your favorite Indian meal or with dal fry, pulao and rice or roti-sabzi combination.

Helpful Tips

• Curd: When you make any raita, use fresh curd or yogurt. The curd should not be sour. You can make this raita with whole milk curd, low fat curd and toned milk curd. For best results, I suggest to use Homemade Curd. Greek yogurt also works wonderfully.
• Capsicum (Bell Pepper): Any variety of bell pepper, be it green, red or yellow works well in this recipe. So feel free to use any kind of bell pepper that you have.
• Spices: To make a spicy raita, you can definitely add green chilies and also increase the amount of red chilli powder. Crushed black pepper can be subbed for red chilli powder. Curry leaves impart so much flavor to this raita. They can be omitted but the flavors will change.
• Herbs: If you do not have cilantro, then use mint. If you do not have either, then skip them totally.
• Scaling: Make a large batch of this raita by doubling the recipe easily. Store any leftovers in a covered container for 1 day in the fridge.

If you make raita often with your meals, then you may like to check this collection of Raita recipes. Few popular raita varieties that I have shared earlier.

• Fruit raita
• Onion raita
• Boondi raita
• Cucumber raita
• Pineapple raita

Please be sure to rate this recipe in the recipe card below if you have made it. For more vegetarian inspirations, Sign Up for my emails or follow me on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.