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Sabudana Vada Recipe, How to make Sabudana Vada Recipe | Sago Vada

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sabudana vada recipe maharashtrian
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Sabudana Vada Recipe with step by step photos. These Super Delicious Sabudana Vadas are crispy from outside with a soft and light texture from inside. This is a proper authentic maharashtrian recipe of making sabudana vadas which taste too good and is exactly the way they are served in maharashtra.

Sabudana vada is one of those recipes that is made during religious fasting (vrat or upvas). Both Sabudana Vada and Sabudana Khichdi are two recipes that i make during fasting days.

In the Indian tradition the shravan month, ekadashi 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. To know more 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:

  1. Sabudana thalipeeth
  2. Sabudana Kheer
  3. Sabudana Tikki
  4. Sabudana pakoras

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 also shared one more variation of easy sabudana vada recipe made without potatoes.

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 as well Maharashtra and many vendors sell these.

If you are looking for more fasting recipes then do check:

Sabudana Vada Recipe Below:

sabudana vada recipe maharashtrian
4.57 from 16 votes
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Sabudana Vada Recipe | Sago Vada Recipe

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

course breakfasts, snacks
cuisine maharashtrian
prep time 5 hours
cook time 30 minutes
total time 5 hours 30 minutes
servings 18 vadas
calories per serving 120 kcal
author dassana amit

ingredients (1 cup = 250 ml)

  • 1 cup sabudana (tapioca pearls)
  • 4 medium sized potatoes (aloo)
  • ½ cup peanuts (moongphali)
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera) - optional
  • 1 to 2 green chillies, finely chopped (hari mirch)
  • 1 teaspoon ginger, finely chopped (adrak)
  • 2 teaspoons lime juice (optional)
  • 2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves, (dhania patta) - OPTIONAL
  • 1.5 teaspoon sugar or as required
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons 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 soft.

  2. Drain of all the water completely very well from the soaked sabudana. Add the sabudana in a mixing bowl. 

  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 and crunchy. Cool and then coarsely powder in a mortar-pestle or in a dry grinder.

  5. Add the peanuts, rock salt, cumin seeds, sugar, ginger, green chillies, coriander leaves and lemon juice to the sabudana . Mix the entire mixture very 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 to 2 tablespoons of rajgira 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 sabudana 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 sago vadas till they are crisp and golden

  11. Remove the sabudana vada 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 video

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. 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.
  6. If the sabudana vada breaks or bursts while frying, then add some flour (buckwheat, amaranth,water chestnut flour) in the vada mixture. If not fasting, then you can add rice flour. 


How to make Sabudana Vada Recipe:

Soaking sabudana:

1. Soak 1 cup 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 soft. Sabudana can also be soaked for 2 hours. I get a hard quality of sabudana and soaking for 2 hours does not help. So i soak sabudana overnight. So depending on the quality of sabudana you can even soak for 2 to 3 hours or more.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

2. Drain of all the water from the soaked sabudana. Drain the water very well. 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.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

3. Take the sabudana pearls in a mixing bowl and keep aside.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

Cooking Potatoes:

4. Rinse 4 medium sized potatoes well in water first. Then place the potatoes in the cooker. Add water which just about covers the potatoes.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

5. Pressure cook potatoes for 4 to 5 whistles on medium flame.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

6. When the pressure settles down on its own, open the lid and check the potatoes. Pass a knife through the center of the potatoes and it should slid easily without any resistance. Let the potatoes become warm. Then chop them or crumble them. You can even mash them.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

Roasting Peanuts:

7. When the potatoes are pressure cooking, you can roast the peanuts. Heat a pan or kadai and add ½ cup peanuts in it.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

8. On a low to medium flame, stirring often roast the peanuts. Use a heavy pan, so that the peanuts do not get burnt.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

9. Roast the peanuts till you see some black spots on their husks. They should be crunchy and well roasted with no rawness from the center.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

10. Let the roasted peanuts cool down. Once they are cooled, add them in a dry grinder or spice grinder. I have removed the husks. If you want you can keep them.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

11. Grind to a coarse powder. Keep the peanut powder aside.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

Making Sabudana Vada Mixture:

12. Add the mashed potatoes and coarsely roasted groundnuts to the sabudana in the mixing bowl.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

13. Next add 1 to 2 chopped green chilies, 1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger and 2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves. You can also skip coriander leaves.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

14. Squeeze 2 teaspoons lemon juice or as per taste.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

15. Now add 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1.5 teaspoons sugar and salt as per taste. You can add less or more sugar as per your taste preferences.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

16. Mix the entire sabudana vada mixture very well.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

17. Now take some portion of the mixture in your hands and shape them into flat round vadas or patties. Do this till all the sabudana vada mixture is utilized.

Making Sabudana Vada Recipe

Frying Sabudana Vada:

18. Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai. Check a small portion of the sabudana vada. It should come up steadily and gradually in the oil. In case the sabudana vada breaks, then there is more moisture in it. So you can add some kuttu ka atta (buckwheat flour), singhare ka atta (water chestnut flour), ragjira atta (amaranth flour) or some more boiled potatoes. If not fasting, then you can add some rice flour in the vada mixture. Mix again and shape in patties. Ideally do this step  before you fry the sabudana vadas.

making sabudana vada recipe

19. Gently place the sabudana vadas in hot oil. Fry them at medium flame. Do not overcrowd while frying.

making sabudana vada recipe

20. When one side is light golden, turn them over with a slotted spoon.

making sabudana vada recipe

21. Turn over again when the second side is golden.

making sabudana vada recipe

22. Continue to fry turning over a couple of tines till the sabudana vadas are uniformly golden and crisp.

making sabudana vada recipe

23. Remove fried sabudana vada with a slotted spoon draining the extra oil.

making sabudana vada recipe

24. Place sabudana vadas on kitchen towels to remove excess oil. Fry all sabudana vadas this way.

sabudana vada recipe

25. Serve 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




Reader Interactions

{ 71 Responses }

  1. Hi Dassana../
    Is there a way to keep the vadas crisp until the next day? I’ve made a batch tonight to be taken to the office tomorrow.. already some of them have turned soft on the outside..

    • nishita, sabudbana vadas are best served hot as they are crisp when served hot. after a few hours they turn soft and do not remain crisp. so there is nothing that can be done. actually this happens with most fried goods. to make them less soft, let the vadas become warm or cool at room temperature. then you pack them in tiffin. when packed hot, the heat releases when the sabudana cools and condenses. this makes them more soft.

  2. Big fan of yours..Detailed recipe with tips leave no room for doubt..my favourite is your Besibele bhath recipe..
    Thank you for making life simpler in kitchen😊😙

  4. As I have got married recently and my father in law is fasting for Navratri so I have used your recipe,vada is come out super well and it tastes yum ❤️ thank you so much !

  7. 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

    • 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.

  10. 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

  11. 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

  13. 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?

    • There is no brand. Just soak sabudana for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Just check if they are soaked well after 30 minutes. If not then soak further.

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

    • 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.

  15. 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

  17. 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.

  18. 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 ?

  19. 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 .

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

  22. 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!!

  25. 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!!! 🙂

  28. 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 ?

    • 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.

  29. 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.

    • 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.