Aloo Bhujia | Aloo Sev

Aloo Bhujia or Aloo Sev with step by step photos. These are crispy, spiced, tangy and light textured sev made with boiled potatoes, gram flour (besan), spices and herbs. They make for a nice tea time snack and can be easily made at home.

About Aloo Bhujia

One of the most popular Indian snack is that of Aloo Bhujia. You get them in packets, tins and even in many snack and sweets shops all over India.

Bhujia, specifically the Bikaneri Bhujia is a crispy snack made with gram flour, moth bean flour, spices and seasonings. This snack consists of thin fried vermicelli strands made from the dough of these lentils flours, spices and originates from the city of Bikaner in Rajasthan state in India.

Bhujia is a general name for this snack and it also includes a few variations like this Aloo Bhujia which has potatoes as one of the key ingredients.

The recipe for this Aloo Bhujia was shared with me by my sister. I made a few changes in the proportion of her recipe and made these crunchy Potato Sev.

These Aloo Bhujia are spiced but not spicy. They are also crispy, tangy and full of flavors – which we call chatpata in Hindi.

To make these Aloo Bhujia, besides potatoes, you need gram flour, some ground spices and herbs like Mint.

It is the mint leaves that bring in so much of herby minty flavor in these bhujia. The tangy taste comes from including chaat masala and dry mango powder.

I made a small batch. But this Aloo Sev recipe can be doubled or tripled as the ingredients are proportionately taken.

Since you can easily store them in an air-tight container for a few weeks, so making a big batch is a good idea.

You can also adapt and customize the recipe by adding your preferred spices, herbs and seasoninings. This bhujia recipe does not have onion and garlic. You can opt to add some garlic paste or onion powder if you like.

Serve Aloo Sev as tea-time snack or anytime snack. You can even garnish your upma, poha, rice based dishes with this spiced and tangy Bhujia.

If you like snacks like these, also have a look at these recipes:

• Sev Recipe (made with gram flour and spices).
• Omapodi recipe (South Indian style Sev flavored with carom seeds)
• Kara Boondi (Masala Boondi Mixture from the South Indian cuisine)
• Mixture Recipe (Flavorful South Indian Mixture)

How to make Aloo Bhujia

Cook Potatoes

1. First boil 2 medium sized potatoes till they are thoroughly cooked. You can cook the potatoes in a pressure cooker or in a steamer pan or in the Instant Pot.

For pressure cooking, take the rinsed potatoes in a 2 litre stovetop pressure cooker. Add water just about covering the potatoes.

Pressure cook for 3 to 4 whistles on medium heat. When the pressure drops on its own in the cooker, then only remove the lid.

Remove the potatoes with the help of tongs and set aside to cool.

2. When the potatoes become warm, peel and mash them very well with a vegetable masher. There should not be any chunks or small pieces.

Let the mashed potatoes cool at room temperature.

3. Heat a pan and add 16 to 18 mint leaves. You can rinse the mint leaves and then add.

4. On a low heat stir and roast the leaves till they wilt and become crisp. Remove and crush the mint leaves in a mortar-pestle to a fine powder. Keep aside.

This step is to dry the fresh mint leaves. If you have dried mint leaves, then you can add ½ teaspoon of dried mint leaves. Crush them and add when you make the bhujia dough.

Make Aloo Bhujia Dough

5. To the mashed potatoes, add the following spices:

• ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
• ¼ teaspoon garam masala powder
• ½ teaspoon red chili powder
• ¼ teaspoon dry mango powder (amchur powder) or ¼ teaspoon lime or lemon juice
• ⅓ teaspoon black salt
• ½ teaspoon chaat masala

For a spicy sev increase the the quantity of red chili powder.

6. Mix well and add the finely crushed or powdered mint leaves.

7. Now seive 1 cup besan or gram flour directly over the potato mixture.

8. Here is a photo of the sifted gram flour.

9. Gently mix and start forming a dough. There is no need to add any water while kneading the dough.

The moisture from the potato is enough for binding the dough. Else the dough will become very sticky if you add water. The dough is just slightly sticky.

10. Make a smooth dough. Cover the dough and keep aside.

Tip 1: If the dough is very sticky, then add a few tablespoons of gram flour.

Tip 2: If it looks dry then add 1 to 2 teaspoon of water.

11. For making aloo sev, you need to use sev press. Choose the disc with the small fine holes.

Grease the top of the this disc with some oil. Also spread some oil all over in the cylindrical jar of the sev maker or sev press.

12. Rub a bit of oil in your hands. Roll the dough into a log and gently place it in the sev maker jar. Reserve a tiny piece of the dough to test the oil temperature.

13. Cover the sev maker with its lid.

Fry Aloo Sev

14. Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai or pan. Add a tiny piece of the dough. 

If the dough comes up gradually, then the oil is ready. If the dough sits at the bottom, the oil is still cold. If the piece of dough comes up briskly and quickly, the oil is too hot.

15. When the oil is ready and moderately hot, directly press the sev maker to make aloo sev. Move in rounds so that the sev is evenly distributed.

Be careful when doing this as the oil will be hot.

16. The oil will start sizzling as soon as the sev comes in contact with it.

17. When the dough firms up, looks separate and lightly crisp, gently turn over with a spider spoon or slotted spoon and fry the other side.

18. Keep on frying them till the sizzling reduces in the oil and the color of potato sev changes to golden.

19. Do flip a couple of times, to get an even color.

20. With a large strainer spoon, remove the fried potato sev from the oil. Drain the excess oil back in the pan, by shaking the spoon.

21. Place the fried Aloo Bhujia Sev on kitchen paper towels to absorb extra oil.

22. When they are still warm, to make them more chatpata, sprinkle ½ to 1 teaspoon of chaat masala or more if you like.

Once cooled, store aloo sev in an air-tight jar. These keep well for a few weeks.

Fry the potato sev in batches this way using up the entire dough. Regulate the oil if needed while frying the bhujia.

23. Serve these crispy Aloo Bhujia as snack during festivals or a tea time snack.

If you are looking for more tea time snacks recipes then do check:

• Chakli Recipe
• Namak Para
• Chivda Recipe
• Nankhatai

This Aloo Bhujia recipe from the archives, originally published in November 2015 has been updated and republished on January 2023.