Mooli ki sabji is an easy, quick and special Punjabi recipe made with white radish or daikon as the star ingredient. Of course, there are so many ways a mooli sabji is made. But my recipe has minimal ingredients and is not overloaded with spices, which lets the flavors of radish shine through in the dish. This is a quick and easy radish recipe comes together in 20 minutes. Besides chopping radish and green chilies, you do not need to chop anything else. A vegan dish.
This recipe is also made without onions and garlic. We also call this sabzi as mooli bhurji. Basically this is a simple radish stir fry but called with different names – Mooli fry, Mooli stir fry, Muli sabji, radish fry etc.
We make this mooli bhurji for breakfast or lunch and serve with roti or paratha paired with a bowl of curd. A healthy and comforting breakfast. You can make the muli sabzi for dinner too.
Along with mooli sabzi, other breakfast recipes that we make from radish are Mooli ka paratha and Mooli thepla. In my home it is a standard practice to have stuffed parathas like aloo paratha, paneer paratha or aloo puri or sabzi with rotis for breakfast.
This mooli ki sabji is my mother-in-law’s recipe. When I first had this Punjabi mooli bhurji (for lunch and not breakfast), I was like wow – I have always had mooli with coconut. This was extreme to me. The pungent earthy flavor of the mooli, the hotness of the chilies, the smokiness and pungent flavor of mustard oil and ajwain (carom seeds). So many tastes and flavors together in one dish.
So if you don’t like radish, then you must try this radish fry recipe. You will forget your animosity with radish. Sometimes we also add Amritsari wadis to this dish.
You can make this mooli sabji with just the white root part or with both the root and leaves. Do remember that the white root part should be tender and the leaves also should be tender. If leaves are not tender, then just make the bhurji with the radish root. You can either chop the mooli finely or grate it.
So it is best to use young, fresh, tender and juicy radish. As they will give you the best taste and flavor. If you have fresh radish with tender leaves then do add them to the dish as they are very healthy. Rinse thoroughly the leaves in fresh water and finely chop them before including in the dish.
How to make Mooli Sabji
A) chopping mooli (radish)
1. Rinse and then peel the white radish. Either grate or chop the radish roots finely. If the radish has tender leaves, then rinse the leaves and then chop them finely too. Also chop the green chilies.
You will need 2 cups finely chopped radish or grated radish (mooli) with or without leaves.
2. In a heavy pan or kadai, heat 1.5 tablespoons mustard oil till it becomes medium hot. You can heat oil on a low or medium heat.
Mustard oil gives the best taste and flavor to this dish. I highly recommend using it in this radish recipe. But if you don’t have mustard oil then use any neutral flavored oil. Though let me tell you that the flavor and taste with any other oil will be different.
3. Then reduce the heat to a low and add ½ teaspoon carom seeds (ajwain). Let them crackle.
4. Now add 1 to 2 green chilies (chopped).
5. Immediately add 1 generous pinch asafoetida powder. Stir and fry again for 2 to 3 seconds. Fry on a low heat.
6. Then add the finely chopped radish.
7. And salt as per taste.
8. Stir and mix very well.
9. Let the radish cook on a low to medium-low heat. Do not cover the pan. Keep on stirring in between at intervals. The radish and the greens (if you have used them) will start to release their juices. The liquids will evaporate after some time whilst the radish is getting cooked.
10. When the radish gets completely cooked and all the liquids have been evaporated and the whole mooli sabji looks dry, switch off the heat.
11. Serve mooli ki sabji hot or warm with soft phulka or chapati. You can also pair with a side of dal rice or with any vegetarian North Indian main course. Generally we serve this radish recipe with some roti and a side of curd or pickle.
Few more sabji recipes for you!
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Mooli ki Sabji | Mooli Bhurji | Easy Radish Recipe
Ingredients
- 1.5 tablespoons mustard oil
- ½ teaspoon carom seeds (ajwain)
- 1 to 2 green chilies – chopped
- 1 generous pinch asafoetida powder (hing)
- 2 cups finely chopped radish or grated or chopped white radish with or without leaves (mooli or daikon)
- salt as required
Instructions
Chopping Radish
- Rinse and peel the radish. Either grate or chop the radish roots finely.
- If the radish has tender leaves, then rinse the leaves and then chop them finely too.
Making mooli sabji
- Heat the mustard oil till it becomes medium hot. Then lower the heat. Add the carom seeds and let them crackle.
- Now add the green chiles and asafoetida and fry again for some seconds.
- Add the chopped radish along with the leaves if using and salt as required. Stir and mix well.
- Do not cover the pan. Let the mooli cook on a low to medium-low heat.
- Keep on stirring in between. The radish and the greens will start to release their juices.
- Keep on stirring the radish at intervals. The liquids will evaporate whilst the radish is getting cooked.
- When the radish gets completely cooked, all the liquids are evaporated and the whole mooli sabji looks dry, then switch off the heat.
- Serve mooli ki sabji hot or warm with soft phulka or chapati. You can also pair a side vegetable salad or a bowl of curd.
Notes
- Use fresh, tender and juicy radish. Avoid using the rough and fibrous radish roots. If the leaves are tender then consider adding them to the recipe as they are very healthy.
- I highly recommend making this radish recipe with mustard oil as the flavor are awesome. But if you don’t have mustard oil then use any neutral tasting oil. Though the taste and the flavor will be different.
- Add less chilies to make the muli sabzi less hot and spicy.
- Recipe can be doubled or tripled.
Nutrition Info (Approximate Values)
This Mooli ki Sabji Recipe post is from the archives (May 2012) and has been republished and updated on 8 July 2021.
I’ve not been a big fan of mooli as I feel it has a strong unpleasant smell. But this simple recipe with a unique combination of ingredients made it so appetizing and delicious. I tried this with grated mooli that was left over after after I made mooli parathas. Both the paratha and this bhurji dish turned out so good that I have to now go and get more moolis …
thanks deepa. even i am not so fond of mooli, but this recipe, mooli paratha and mooli vadi are my favorite recipes with mooli. i only get mooli to make these three recipes on occasions ????
Hi Dasanna
I am not a great fan of radish and on top of it, you are suggesting to use Mustard oil, something which we dont use. Can i avoid the Mustard oil and replace with refined oil? i have bought Radish as its very nutritious and the only thing i know to make out of it is paranthas. this one looks nice, so want to try, but the mustard oil….Please advise.
you can use regular oil instead of mustard oil. but with mustard oil, the taste is good. sometimes i also make with sunflower oil when we do not have mustard oil. so you can skip. also preeti, avoid using refined oils. using cold pressed oils. also known as kachchi ghani oils. refined oils are bad for health. you do get kachchi ghani oils of peanut, sesame, mustard and sunflower seeds. so you can use these. trust me with these oils the food tastes much better and the health is also not affected.
Just checked again. Got it. Sorry and Thanks.
no issues ritu.
What about salt in the subji? Do we put salt?
We make this mooli subji with onions green chillies n chana daal.
thanks for sharing your variation.
Hi,
This is new..I usually make these leaves with just Greent chillies, garlic , more of garlic actually. To add a twist I sometimes add roasted groundnut powder..I will definitely try this one..thanks..
Pooja
welcome pooja. thanks for sharing your method. this recipe is how we make it at home.
Hi Dassana
Thnx for all the recipes you have uploaded…..
I have tried a few and all were great. I must tell you that you have done a wonderful job by launching this site…… I owe you a lot…..
pls let me know if I could do anything for you…… Thnx again
welcome amit. its nice to know that the blog is helping so much. honestly speaking, this appreciation is a reward in itself. thanks for your kind gesture.
Hi! I am your biggest fan and love your recipes. I stumbled on your website while looking for a dal tadka recipe. Since then have made all dal n sabzis following uR recipes and they all turned out superb. Just wanted to congratulate you for an amazing job and thank you as well.
thanks jyotsana for your words. glad to know. your feedback is appreciated.
Thank you Thank you for posting this recipe. This is exactly what I needed to cook the abundant daikon radishes we get here in the US, this recipe is so simple but sooo perfect. We loved it.
welcome annu. glad to know that you liked the recipe.
thanks for thedetailed recipe on salad
Reminded me good old childhood days. yam yam.
Dassana,
It is easy to make your own chipotles, it just takes patience. They are jalapeno peppers (mild to medium hot chiles about the size of a thumb), and they are smoked. When we buy them here, they are most often green, but they turn red when ripe. You can smoke them either way, whole or cut into small circles (faster). Here we can also buy them dried out and pre-smoked, but you actually get richer flavor when you smoke them yourself. If you have an outside grill, you just keep the heat on quite low, with some wood chips, for a long time, between 3 hours to an entire day. There are a lot of opinions about how to do this, so I am giving you a few links, but you can decide yourself how you might prefer them. The smoking brings out the sweetness of the pepper, and diminishes the spiciness a bit, making the flavor more mellow. It is a very popular flavor here, people stir it into their sauces and salad dressings. The smoking technique works with other kinds of peppers, too, but be careful not to do this inside your house, you might create a smoke that will really irritate your throat or eyes!
Once you have the peppers smoked, we create an adobo sauce, which is really just a kind of chipotle chutney made with garlic, vinegar, and sweeteners. Often this is used just as is, or maybe blended smooth, to create something like a spicy ketchup used as a condiment. You can stir this into mayonnaise to spread on your sandwich, or in salad dressing. You can stir some into your mashed potatoes or cauliflower puree, etc. This version, with the peppers whole, cooked into a thick sauce, can be bought in a small can here, and a thinner, sweeter version can be bought in a bottle like ketchup. I am sending you links so that you could try making this yourself. When I was in India, I bought jalapeno peppers, but I don’t remember what they called them there, if you like, I will ask my Indian friends. But this smoking technique is one that you could use on almost any kind of peppers or mix of peppers, some sweet, some hot.
https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/how-to-smoke-chipotle-peppers.aspx#axzz2Sq4zAdQX
I bought jalapenos in India, and made Mexican-style salsa for them, they seemed to like it a lot (or at least they were too polite to tell me otherwise!); they ate it with tortilla chips (crispy fried corn chappattis cut in triangles). I also made them guacamole, but we had a hard time finding avocados there, they called them butter fruit, muhkta- something like that, we went all over Chandigarh looking for them but only found a few and they were not very good ones. I also made them pina coladas, pineapple coconut rum drinks (some wanted “virgin” ones, without the rum), and they liked those a lot. It surprised me that they didn’t already know that combination, since coconut seemed to be used a lot in other cooking.
This has been fun, talking to you! I will try other things soon! Linda
thanks thanks thanks linda for the lengthy explanation and the links. we do jalapeno peppers sized chilies here. i will try with them. i have saved your entire comment on my laptop and will refer to them when i make the sauce. really appreciate you taking time and writing so much in detail. also pina colads and the coconut drinks are well known. atleast i know of them. i have even had them minus the rum. avocado is difficult to find in the northern parts of india. but they are easily available in mumbai, goa and bangalore.
Hi! I visited India for the first time in December, and I am trying to make some of the wonderfull things I ate there. I did not have this dish, but it sounds good. What I saw in India was a white radish they called Mooli, about 1.5″ in diameter and about 12″ long. The only radish I can find here (in Seattle) is either the Daikon, which is also white, much thicker, but doesn’t have any greens, or else the small ball-shaped red radishes, with little tails, which can be bought with their greens. Can I use those red radishes and greens to make this dish? Could you please post a picture of what they greens look like before they are cooked? Thanks!
hi linda. the white radish is called as mooli here and pretty long. they are tender and not that pungent or strong. you can make this dish without the greens. sometimes i don’t get the greens and i just make it with the white roots.
Hi, Dassana! Thanks for the info! I looked at the picture of the radish greens you sent, and they look much like the red radish leaves, so I think I will try to make it with those. I never thought about cooking radish before, usually we just eat it as salad or garnish ingredients, but this looks interesting, and in India I also had it in chappattis made with chickpea flour. I also make a salad myself with daikon radish and red radish, jicama, chopped tomato, scallions, cilantro (coriander), and diced jalapeno peppers, and black and white sesame seeds. I season it with rice vinegar, a little sugar, Thai fish sauce, diced chipotles in adobo (those are smoked jalapeno peppers that come canned in a red vinegar sauce), and worcestershire sauce. I cut it in large chunks for a salad, or small dice to use as a condiment, and it is best when it has a chance to sit, refrigerated, for an hour or more so the flavors can mix, but you might want to pour off some of the extra liquid before serving. Thanks again for your info, I will try your recipe soon!
hi linda. in india too, we make salads with radishes. but we also cook with it. what you had was besan paratha with grated radish.
thanks for the detailed recipe on salad. i would love to try chipotles. but i don’t get them here. i shall try this recipe minus some of the ingredients soon.
really a good and easy to make recipe.
I love the mooli leaves subji, but hardly get these greens here..nom..nom..
We make a dish called Muji haakh in Kashmir. Same process, but no carom seeds. I am craving some of that now.
I generally make the guy remove the leaves!! I should not do that the next time. Will try this. Looks delicious
A very healthy recipe dear.
Very yummy with awesome click
As a child, I had an aversion to radish because of its pungent smell. My Mom loves it and cooks it with coconut. However, there is a variety of radish that we find here that do not have any strong smell at all. I have eaten them raw in salads. They are roundish and very small in size.
i have seen some of these radish pics in food blogs. we don’t get it here. all we get is the indian white radish…
Healthy curry…perfect to go with rotis and rice. Nice clicks!