Last updated on April 28th, 2023
If you’re an Indian, you must have grown up eating kachori, samosa, and oily paranthas in your morning & evening snacks. But the way as today’s lifestyle has become sedentary, finding healthy Indian snacks alternative is essential to avoid a lot of diseases.
Experts & studies suggest that snacking is an important part of a healthy diet routine (ref). Moreover, they provide some extra nutrition boost to your body while satiating your small pangs of hunger.
But how much they would help you depends upon the quality of the snacks. If you’re not choosing the right food for snacks, they can make you fat & hinder your weight loss efforts.
Therefore, I have brought you 14 healthy Indian snacks today that are not only tasty but also nutritious. All these recipes are vegetarian and unique. You will not see the repetitive ones found everywhere on the internet. Plus, I have categorized them into 4 parts:
- morning snacks for weight loss,
- evening healthy Indian snacks,
- dessert snacks options, and
- beverages healthy swaps.
I will share the detailed recipes for these healthy Indian snacks in videos in the upcoming days.
You’ll also like:
Healthy Indian Snacks for Weight Loss
1. Sprout Mix Parantha
Who doesn’t love a bowl of well-made sprouts chaat? But you would also agree that we Indians love eating paranthas for breakfast. Don’t we?
So, why not make your paranthas more nutritious & tasty?
This recipe is for those who want to grab the benefits of both enjoying paranthas & not losing the goodness of sprouts in the breakfast at the same time.
For the recipe, you need 1 cup of boiled sprouts. Add some water and grind well in a mixer. Your paste is ready to mix in your parantha dough. Mix well and make paranthas using a low amount of ghee.
You will notice the colour, as well as the taste of your paranthas, has changed beautifully. Serve them with chutney & salad. This could be the perfect tea-time snack for your tiffin.
2. Crispy Dhokla Cake instead of Kachori
You will forget kachori after eating this. Because it tastes better than Kachori. This is neither a sugar-loaded cake nor the unhealthy calories put in this snack.
For the recipe, you’re going to need raw suji, 5-6 spoon curd, 4-5 raw Lauki pieces, 2-3 little potato pieces, green chillies, salt & water. Now, take the mixer jar and put all the ingredients in it and then some water.
Grind well and take out the batter. Mix 1 small sachet of Eno powder in it. Now spread the batter-like cake in a pan. Bake it using steam.
After it’s baked, cut it into 4 pieces. Also, you need a very less amount of oil for making it crispy. Spread that oil in a separate Tawa or pan and put jeera, rai, Heeng, and Curry Patta or add any spices as per your taste.
Now fry it until it turns into brown colour. It’s time to put your baked dhokla into a pan and roast it. Your tastiest & healthiest snack is ready.
Note: You can leave potatoes if you don’t want to use them. It’s still very tasty with Lauki pieces.
3. Go for Veg Dosa Roll, Not Puri Sabji
Puri sabzi tastes yummy but sadly they are filled with calories. So, what should they be replaced with?
What about a dosa roll? One of the best healthy Indian snacks!
Even if you don’t like dosa, you’re going to love these rolls. They are tasty, healthy, and easy to make.
Just make dosa and fill them with all the healthy salads and veggies available out there. To make the filling juicy, use chutney or a little amount of sauce if you want to.
Put the filling in between and roll it.
4. Swap to Green Peas/Sprouts Uttapam from Chhole Bhature
I love Chhole Bhature but if I eat them daily, I am going to deteriorate my health. So, what to do? I just have to find healthier solutions that taste like or are sometimes better than Chhole Bhature.
The healthiest alternative that I found is Green Peas Uttapam. It’s quick to make snacks.
For the recipe, you need green peas, rice flour, suji, and urad daal. And add veggies for the taste. This batter turns out to be a mouth-watering uttapam snack.
For the dressing, you can add peas & also enjoy it with Chhole.
The full recipe is here:
5. Switch to Paneer Moong Daal Cutlet from Bread Sandwich
This tastes like a bread sandwich and is also not deep-fried.
For the batter, use moong dal & corn flour. You can add rice flour or suji too. For the filling, you need paneer, mashed potatoes, and some spices.
The recipe is just like making dosa. Spread the batter on the pan. And the only difference you have to make here is to spread the layer of potato & paneer evenly on half the side of the dosa.
And fold it after it becomes crunchy enough from the bottom side of the pan. When it’s cooked enough, take it out and put it on the plate.
Now, cut it into 4 pieces. your homemade sandwich is ready. One of the best protein-rich healthy Indian snacks!
A similar recipe:
Healthy Evening Snacks
6. Roasted Soyabean/Lobiya/Chickpeas Namkeen, Not Fries
It can be made the same way as any other daal Namkeen is prepared. But here you have to roast it to avoid unnecessary calories.
Using an air fryer or convection microwave is the best option to roast any lentil.
Soak soybean in water overnight. Drain the water in the morning. Spread it on the baking sheet of the oven. Use a very less amount of oil for making the spices remain stuck to it.
Add chilli powder & other spices. And set the roasting mode. A very healthy & tasty snack is ready.
7. Air Fried Peanut instead of Deep Fried Peanuts
Almost everyone I know likes to eat peanuts. And that’s why I mentioned it separately here. The most favourite ways of frying peanuts are besan peanuts and deep-fried peanuts.
But have you ever tried it roasting in an air fryer? An air fryer can make it one of the best healthy Indian snacks for tea lovers.
Trust me, they are still tasty & healthier obviously.
8. Stuffed Masala Idli/Homemade Wheat Veg Momos in place of Samosa
Either you can try an air-fried samosa which I don’t recommend much. Although the taste is not bad, it’s quite different from that of a deep-fried samosa.
Please remember if you air fry or roast any lentils, or other snack items, it tastes good. But with samosa my personal opinions are different.
So, I suggest you try stuffed Idli instead. We all know how to make idli. Still, you can stuff it with all your favourite veggies to enjoy it more.
Note: If you want A BETTER TASTE, my personal opinion is not to fill raw or boiled veggies in your Idli. You should rather stuff shallow fried crispy veggies mixed with spices & vinegar.
Read & watch the full Idli recipe with veg corn salad here and Steamed Wheat Atta Momos.
9. Well-Garnished Matar Chat instead of Fried Aloo Tikki
Chaat & Tikki, these snacks are quite popular and taking their name merely is enough to mouth-water any Indian.
However, do you know one is healthier than the other? Let me explain.
A deep-fried Tikki has much more calories than the boiled Matar chaat garnished with tasty spices & salad.
It remains one of the traditional healthy Indian snacks even if you do the boiled Aloo dressing on your Matar chaat. It’s still much healthier than Tikki.
Natural Healthy Indian Beverages Snacks
10. Try Butter Milk to Replace Cold Drinks
If you prefer cold drinks over buttermilk, I bet you don’t know how to drink buttermilk in a tastier way.
Do you want to replace coke with buttermilk? Put water in a bowl of Dahi, knead it, and add ice cubes. To sweeten it, add Dhaga mishri powder, or stevia leaves. Garnish it with sweet fruits like apple pieces, strawberries, pineapple etc.
Do you want to replace a salty soft drink with buttermilk? Repeat the process till the kneading. And then put Jeera, Heeng powder, green chilli, and garlic cloves in a frying pan after adding 2 small spoons of ghee, butter, or olive oil. Fry it.
Pour this mixture into your buttermilk. Add ice cubes, Curry Patta leaves, Dhaniya leaves, & black salt to taste. You can also add spices & Jaljeera powder.
11. Milk with Unsweetened Cocoa Powder, not Sugar-laden Tea
I love having this in winter. Several winter drinks can be prepared with milk. But for lazy people, like me who also love the taste of cocoa, this is easy to make a beverage.
To sweeten it, try your favourite sugar alternative.
12. Apple Vegetable Juice
Apple is to make your juice taste like you have sugar in it. You can replace apples with any other sweet fruit pieces.
Please remember, that the ratio of fruits & vegetables should be 30:70.
Having a cold press juicer at home can help you extract fresh juice daily without killing its nutritional value.
Healthy Dessert Snacks
13. Choose Sweet Salad/ Fruits over Jalebi/Dessert
Finding healthy Indian snacks as your dessert options isn’t easy at all! And we all agree that nothing can replace jalebi & ras malai.
However, you must look for other healthier options if you’re a dessert lover. I am not saying that sweet salad can replace dessert but it can satisfy your taste buds to an extent when you need to eat the dessert.
No matter, how unhealthy you try to make your salad, it’s still going to be healthier than a highly processed dessert. Garnish your fruits with honey, mishri, and a little amount of cheese.
14. Homemade Poha Barfi or Nariyal Barfi instead of Cookies
A sweet nariyal barfi needs nothing except nariyal & milk. Just don’t add Mawa. And also don’t load it with a lot of sugar.
Try adding any stevia-based sweetener instead. I prefer Dhaga mishri which is not refined.
For taste enhancers, you can try vanilla essence or any other essence. You would be surprised how much taste it has with just three ingredients.
You can do the same with Poha barfi.
Conclusion on Healthy Indian Snacks
When you start switching to healthier food options, it’s not like that you can do it in a single day or week. And it becomes more difficult when you eat only Daliya, moong dal, and other boring foods.
Please remember you don’t need to eat boring at all when you can make the same food tastier in a healthier way.
That’s why I have collected these recipes in one place for you and all of these 14 healthy Indian snacks are my personal favourite.
So, enjoy them. 🙂
More articles on weight loss:
Leave a Reply