Sev Puri Recipe – Mumbai Style

Sev Puri is a popular Mumbai street food chaat. Crisp fried puri discs are topped with chutneys, boiled potatoes, onions, sev, herbs, and ground spices. Every bite has a mix of spicy, sweet, tangy, salty, and crunchy flavors. Learn how to make sev puri at home with my authentic Mumbai-style recipe.

Sev Puri Recipe – Mumbai Street Style

The word sev refers to thin fried gram flour (besan) vermicelli. Puri here means crisp fried flat discs, also known as papdi, usually made from wheat flour or all-purpose flour.

At first glance, the name sev puri may give the impression that the snack is made with just sev and puri. But that’s far from true. Sev puri has many elements, and each one plays an important role.

It is part of the larger assortment of chaat snacks from Indian cuisine. The word chaat comes from the Hindi word meaning “to lick” or “to taste”.

Sev puri is one of my favorite chaat recipes. In fact, when I think about it, most chaat recipes are hard not to like.

With spicy, sweet, tangy, salty, and savory tastes along with different textures coming together in every bite, sev puri has a lot going on. If you enjoy sev puri, you’ll be glad to know that it is easy to make at home.

Once the chutneys are ready and the potatoes are boiled, all that’s left is assembling the ingredients.

I recommend preparing the chutneys a day in advance and refrigerating them. Assemble sev puri just before serving, as the puris turn soggy if kept for long.

Ingredients You Need

1. Poori or Papdi: These form the base of this snack which holds all the toppings. Puri can be made at home or bought from shops. Essentially, these puris are crisp flat fried discs made from whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour.
2. Green Chutney – The condiment that adds some freshness, spiciness in the sev puri recipe is this green chutney made from fresh coriander leaves (cilantro) or both coriander and mint leaves, ginger or garlic, green chillies and salt.
3. Sweet Chutney – The sweet tangy taste in a sev puri, comes from this thick sweet chutney or sauce that is made with tamarind, dates and sugar/jaggery.
4. Red Garlic Chutney – Dried red chillies and garlic make up for this pungent and hot chutney which gives a lot of smoky spiciness to the dish.
5. Sev – These are crispy and super fine or fine vermicelli made from gram flour. These are also known as nylon vermicelli. While the name ‘nylon vermicelli’ looks weird, I assure that there is no nylon in it. You can make crunchy sev by yourself or buy from a grocery store.
6. Veggies – Boiled soft potatoes, crunchy onions and tangy tomatoes are the veggies you add in a sev puri recipe.
7. Spices & Herbs: Lightly sprinkled chaat masala, roasted cumin powder, black salt and generous topping with coriander leaves and a drizzle of lemon juice add the finishing touches to the dish.

I recommend to make the chutneys a day earlier and refrigerate them. As I have mentioned above, the puri and sev can be store brought.

Sev Puri vs Papdi Chaat

Papdi Chaat is another snack that looks similar to sev puri, but the taste and flavors are totally different.

Sev puri is very popular in Mumbai and western Indian states, while papdi chaat is more common in Delhi and parts of North India.

The main difference is the use of curd (yogurt). In traditional North Indian papdi chaat, yogurt is always added, which makes the chaat creamy and rich.

Tomatoes are not used in authentic versions. Onions may be added or skipped, and sev is optional. Sev puri, on the other hand, never uses yogurt and stays sharp, crisp, and tangy.

Papdi chaat may also include boiled white chickpeas and sometimes urad dal pakoris (black gram fritters). These ingredients are not used in sev puri.

More Popular Mumbai Chaat Snacks To Try

• Pani Puri
• Bhel Puri
• Dahi Puri
• Ragda Patties

How to make Sev Puri (Step-by-Step)

Before you start making sev puri, you need to make the three condiment chutneys. Prep them a day ahead to make your work easier.

Make Green Chutney

1. Rinse 2 cups of coriander leaves well in water. Drain the water and roughly chop them. Take all the ingredients listed below in a blender.

• 2 cups chopped coriander leaves, tightly packed
• 1 teaspoon chopped chillies, add more for a spicy taste
• 1 inch ginger
• ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• ½ teaspoon chaat masala
• ¼ to ½ teaspoon lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon black salt or regular salt

2. Add 1 or 2 teaspoons water and grind to a smooth chutney. Add a few teaspoons more of the water if required. But don’t make the chutney too thin or runny.

3. Remove the chutney in a bowl and set aside. Cover and refrigerate if making sev puri after some hours or next day.

Make Red Chilli Chutney

4. Break and deseed 15 to 16 dry Kashmiri red chilies. Soak the red chilies in hot water for about 20 to 30 minutes. The water just needs to cover them. Peel and roughly chop 8 to 9 medium garlic cloves.

5. Drain all the water from the red chilies after 20 to 30 minutes. Add the red chillies, garlic and salt according to taste in a blender or grinder.

Adding very little water grind or blend both the red chilies and garlic until smooth. The consistency of the chutney should be more towards thicker side or of medium consistency.

6. Pour the red chilli garlic chutney in a small jar or bowl. Cover and refrigerate.

Make Tamarind Chutney

7. Rinse ½ cup tamarind (remove seeds if any) in a strainer. In a pan, take the tamarind, ½ cup dates (seedless or pitted) and 2 cups water.

Cook the tamarind and dates for about 8 to 9 minutes on a low heat or until they soften.

8. When the tamarind and dates have softened, add ½ cup of powdered or chopped jaggery and continue to cook. Let the jaggery dissolve completely and the mixture thicken a bit.

Swap ½ cup of sugar with jaggery if you do not have jaggery.

9. Add all the spice powders – ¼ to ½ teaspoon red chili powder or cayenne, ½ teaspoon coriander powder, ½ teaspoon dry ginger powder (ground ginger) and ½ teaspoon roasted cumin powder.

10. Mix well and simmer for a further 1 to 2 minutes more. Season with salt according to taste. Let the chutney mixture cool at room temperature.

11. In a chutney grinder or small blender, grind this whole mixture until smooth. Add some water if needed while blending or grinding. Strain the chutney through a strainer if desired.

Store the tamarind date chutney in an airtight bowl or container in the refrigerator and use it when you make chaat at home.

This recipe will give you a bowl of thick tamarind chutney, which you can easily refrigerate for a month or freeze for 2 to 3 months.

Assembling Sev Puri

1. First keep all the elements (chutneys, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, ground spices, salt, sev etc) that you need in your workplace before you begin to assemble sev puri.

Prep 2 to 3 medium to large potatoes by boiling them until tender and softened. Cook potatoes in a pressure cooker, pan or Instant Pot. When warm or cool, peel and chop them in small cubes.

Finely chop the onions, tomatoes and coriander leaves. Set aside.

2. Arrange the flat puri or papdi on a plate.

3. Top up with chopped boiled potatoes cubes.

4. Then add finely chopped onions. Top with some chopped finely tomatoes. Sprinkle some chaat masala, if you want at this point.

5. Top with just a touch of spicy red chilli garlic chutney – about ¼ to ½ teaspoon. Add in fewer amounts as this chutney is very spicy.

Using this chutney is optional and you can substitute it with red chili powder. Though you won’t get the same taste with red chili powder. But something is better than nothing.

6. Top up with the 1 to 2 teaspoons of green chutney or as much as you want.

7.  Now top with 1 to 2 teaspoons of sweet chutney or more if you like. Vary the amount of green chutney or sweet chutney according to your taste.

If preparing for someone else, keep in mind that person’s taste choices. Example, if someone likes a sweet-tangy taste, add more of the sweet tamarind chutney.

8. Sprinkle 2 to 3 pinches of chaat masala, roasted cumin powder and black salt or rock salt or regular salt.

9. Sprinkle sev evenly all over on the sev puri. Ensure to use the finer variety of sev as the thicker ones simply do not give the best authentic taste.

10. Lastly garnish with some chopped coriander leaves (cilantro).

11. Sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice to add some brightness and tang to the dish.

Serving Suggestions

Serve sev puri straightway. Assemble and make all sev puris in this manner and serve them immediately. And don’t be surprised if your family, friends or guests ask for a second or third helping.

This snack is eaten as is without any sides or accompaniments. Eat them as soon as they are made, so that the puris do not become soggy from the moisture of the chutneys.

Dassana’s Recipe Notes

• Homemade Chutneys: I suggest to make all the chutneys at home rather than buying bottled or packaged ones for your sev puri recipe. Homemade condiments are more fresher, flavorful and tastier without any added preservatives. While the green chutney needs to be used up within 2 to 3 days, tamarind chutney stays good for about a month and red chilli chutney for about a week. You can also freeze these chutneys. 
• Papdi: These fried crispy edible puris can be easily made at home. If you want to make these, check out this homemade Papdi Recipe, where I show both fried and baked versions. Sometimes the store brought papdi are hard to bite into. These do not give a good taste while eating. The papdi has to be crispy, thin and slightly flaky.
• Sev: You can choose to make the sev at home or buy it from outside. Try to include the finer thin sev and not the thick and coarser sev for best texture.
• Serving: Sev puri has to eaten as soon as it is made. You cannot keep it resting for minutes or hours as they become soggy and do not taste good. You can keep all your ingredients ready and assemble sev puri when you want to serve it.

Helpful Answers

Sev puri recipe from the blog archives was first published on November 2011.