Rava Dosa Recipe
My foolproof recipe for crispy, lacy rava dosa with step-by-step instructions and lots of troubleshooting tips. The batter comes together in 10 minutes and creates the best-tasting, restaurant-style rava dosa. Serve with potato masala and coconut chutney.
Servings: 12 rava dosas
Calories: 161kcal
Equipment
- Non-stick or cast iron griddle (tava)
Ingredients
- 1 cup rava or sooji (finely ground)
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour (maida)
- ¾ cup rice flour
- 2 sprigs curry leaves (chopped. You can substitute these with 2 tablespoons of cilantro)
- 1 medium red onion (finely chopped)
- 1 tablespoon ginger (grated)
- 1 green chili pepper (like jalapeno or serrano, minced)
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- Salt to taste
- 5 cups water (divided)
- ¼ cup avocado oil or any neutral oil (or cooking spray)
For serving
- Potato masala
- Coconut chutney
Instructions
Make the rava dosa batter
- Place the rava, all-purpose flour and rice flour in a large bowl. Add chopped curry leaves, onions, grated ginger, chopped green chili peppers, cumin seeds and salt.
- Add four cups of water to the bowl and whisk. Don't worry about small lumps. Set the batter aside for 30 minutes. Whisk the batter (any lumps would have smoothed out by now). Add the remaining cup of water and whisk to mix.
Make rava dosa
- Heat a non-stick or cast iron griddle over medium-high heat. Brush on a thin coat of oil. When the oil begins to smoke, reduce heat to medium. Stir the batter thoroughly one more time and use a rounded soup ladle to pour the rava dosa batter on the hot griddle from a height of about two inches. The batter should spread immediately on its own, forming holes. Pour more batter around it (not over it), if needed, to create a more even shaped dosa. Rava dosa doesn't need to be perfectly round.
- Use a spoon to dribble a bit of oil around the edges of the dosa and into the larger holes. This will help the dosa crisp up. Don't touch the dosa until the edges and the areas around the holes begin to look very golden brown (like in the photo above). At this point use a thin spatula to gently loosen the dosa at the edges, moving gradually to the center.
- Place a few tablespoons of potato masala, if using, over one half of the dosa. Fold the dosa over the potato masala. Gently lift it off the griddle and serve immediately.
- Continue to make more dosas, stirring the batter well each time before scooping it out on the griddle.
Notes
Nutrition information is for rava dosa alone and does not include potato masala.
Ingredient notes
- Rava (also called sooji or semolina). This is ground wheat, but it's not a flour. You can find rava/sooji at any Indian store or online and it is sold both in a coarse grind and a fine grind. For this recipe, and for recipes like vegan sooji halwa, rava idli and rava upma, you need fine-ground rava.
- All-purpose flour (maida). Flour provides the binding prowess that's needed to keep the dosa together and to help it set up.
- Rice flour. The rice flour helps make the rava dosa crispy and also helps with structure.
- Onions. Finely chopped onions are divine in a rava dosa. When cooking Indian food, red onions or shallots are preferred, but if yellow or white onions are what you have they will do. A rava dosa made with onions is called an onion rava dosa. You can skip the onions for a plain rava dosa.
- Curry leaves. You can substitute cilantro for the curry leaves.
- Green chili peppers. Use jalapeno or serrano chillies or any green chilli peppers you can get your hands on. Deseed the chilies for less heat. If very sensitive to heat, use fresh-ground black pepper instead.
- Potato masala. This is the stuffing that goes inside the rava dosa. You can also serve the rava dosa plain with some chutney.
Nutrition
Serving: 1 rava dosa | Calories: 161kcal | Carbohydrates: 25g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Potassium: 61mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 15IU | Vitamin C: 8mg | Calcium: 13mg | Iron: 1mg