Dal tadka or tadkewali dal is a traditional legume-based dish originating from the northern parts of India. Although there are variations, the dish is usually prepared with toor dal (split yellow pigeon peas), garlic, ginger, onions, tomatoes, garam masala, chili peppers, ghee, cumin, coriander, turmeric, red chili powder, and fenugreek leaves.
These ingredients are cooked and mixed with tadka (tempering), consisting of spices such as asafoetida, chili peppers, and garlic that are cooked in ghee. Once prepared, dal tadka is usually garnished with coriander leaves and served hot with jeera rice and roti on the side.
Originating from India's Moghul cuisine, shahi paneer is a cheese curry that is prepared with paneer cheese, onions, cashews, and a rich, spicy tomato-cream sauce. The dish is typically accompanied by Indian breads such as naan, roti, or puri. Often referred to as the Royal paneer, traditionally, it is prepared during special occasions and festivities as a vegetarian main course.
Rich, hearty, and nutritious, shahi paneer is commonly garnished with coriander leaves.
Malai kofta is a traditional North Indian dish consisting of fried potato and paneer balls in a creamy sauce. The dish is commonly served at festivals, celebrations, and weddings due to its rich texture and flavors. A typical dish of Mughal cuisine, developed in Medieval India by the cooks of the Mughal Empire, it is essentially a vegetarian substitute for a meatball curry, malai meaning cream, and kofta meaning dumplings.
The dish is often prepared in a unique wok called a kadai, hence the other name of the dish, kadai kofta. Some food historians believe that these deep-fried dumplings have incorporated the influences of Turkish and Persian food cultures within them.
Misal is a specialty dish of the Indian state of Maharashtra, its name literally translated to a mixture of everything, so the ingredients vary from cook to cook. However, a combination of these ingredients is the most common in a typical misal: curd, moth bean or pea curry, gravy, spiced potatoes, and garnishings such as onions, coriander, and tomatoes.
It is mandatory for a true misal to be spicy, while the base needs to be crunchy. Visually, it should look like a work of art, with lots of colors - typically red, brown, orange, and green. The earliest mention of the dish appeared around the early 20th century.
MOST ICONIC Misal
View moreThis flavorful and highly nutritious national dish of India is especially popular in southern parts of the country, but it can also be found in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Dal is a stew with the main ingredient of black or yellow lentils—the most consumed ingredients in India—but it can also be prepared with peas, chickpeas, or mung beans.
Inexpensive and easy to make, dal was an ideal food for the working class as it provided lots of energy for a full day of labor. While yellow lentils are most commonly used, black lentils are the most prized variety when making dal. Hulled and split, the slightly nutty lentils are slowly simmered with a variety of spices such as caraway, coriander, onions, garlic, chiles, and ginger until they break apart, and are then mashed into a smooth purée.
VARIATIONS OF Dal
Pav bhaji is a popular street snack originating from the Indian state of Maharashtra. It consists of a vegetable curry that is typically served with a soft bread roll known as pav. The dish was invented in the 1850s as a midnight meal by street vendors who prepared it with all the leftover vegetables from the day, which were then mashed and combined with spices and ghee butter.
Originally, it was a quick and easy meal for Mumbai's textile mill workers, but today it is a favorite street snack that is also served in some restaurants in Mumbai. There are a lot of varieties of the basic pav bhaji, with added cheese, paneer, mushrooms, plantains, and even dried fruits thrown in the flavorful curry mix.
MOST ICONIC Pav bhaji
View moreMisal pav is a traditional dish originating from Maharashtra. Its two main components are misal – a curry made with sprouted moth beans, usually topped with chivda, onions, chilis, and potatoes – and pav, bread rolls used to mop up the flavorful curry.
Misal pav can be served for breakfast, as a snack or a main dish. It is commonly found in roadside stalls, breakfast joints, and office canteens.
MOST ICONIC Misal pav
View moreMAIN INGREDIENTS
Palak paneer is a popular Indian vegetarian dish made with paneer cheese in a rich, thick sauce consisting of puréed spinach mixed with tomatoes, garam masala, garlic, and numerous spices. The key ingredients are even mentioned in the name of the dish, since palak means spinach in hindi, and paneer refers to the cheese.
Palak paneer has roots in the Punjabi region, but there are also other variations of the dish throughout India. It is a highly nutritious meal that can be consumed either for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, accompanied by rice or Indian flatbreads such as naan and roti.
MAIN INGREDIENTS
Vada pav is one of Mumbai's favorite sandwiches, its name referring to the key ingredients: vada, or spicy mashed potatoes that are deep-fried in chickpea batter, and pav, or white bread rolls. This iconic street food is said to have originated from a street vendor named Ashok Vaidya, who worked near the Dadar train station in the 1960s and 1970s.
He thought of a way to satiate the hungry workers, and concluded that the ideal dish should be portable, affordable, and easy to prepare. Ashok made vada pav, and its popularity skyrocketed, especially after the Shiv Sena, a Marathi-Hindu nationalist political party, started to promote the sandwich as an ideal working class snack.
MOST ICONIC Vada pav
View moreMAIN INGREDIENTS
Dahi vada is a popular Indian snack that can also be served either as a main dish or as an accompaniment to vegetable or meat dishes. The dish originates from North India and consists of savory lentil-based fried balls (vadas) that are soaked in a thick yogurt (dahi).
This popular street food is often topped with spices such as chili, cumin, coriander, and various chutneys. The dish is also popular at festive occasions such as weddings, and provides an ideal refreshment on a hot summer day.
TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. For the “Top 89 Indian Vegetarian Dishes” list until February 14, 2025, 2,933 ratings were recorded, of which 2,115 were recognized by the system as legitimate. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.