Indian Recipes
Sambar
The everyday lentil and vegetable stew of South India: toor dal cooked until creamy, simmered with aubergine, carrots, shallots, green beans and tomato, soured with tamarind and spiced with sambar powder, then finished with a sizzling tempering of mustard seeds, dried chillies, curry leaves and asafoetida.
- Serves 6
- Hands-on 25 min
- Cook about 1 hr (30 min in a pressure cooker)
- Vegan
- Gluten-free if your asafoetida is
- South Indian (Tamil Nadu and Karnataka)
Method
Put the dal (150 g) in a saucepan with 750 ml water and the turmeric (½ tsp). Bring to the boil, skim off any foam, then cover partly and simmer for 35–45 minutes, stirring now and then, until completely soft and collapsing. (In a pressure cooker, cook for 4–5 whistles.) Whisk to a smooth, thick purée.
Meanwhile, put the shallots (8 shallots), carrots (2 carrots) and beans (100 g) in a large pan with 500 ml water and a teaspoon of salt. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes, then add the aubergine (1) and cook for 5 minutes more.
Add the tomatoes (2 tomatoes), green chillies (2), the tamarind water (1 tbsp), sambar powder (2 tbsp) and sugar (1 tsp). Simmer for 8–10 minutes until the vegetables are just tender and the raw smell of the tamarind has gone.
Stir in the dal purée and bring back to a gentle simmer for 5–10 minutes. The sambar should be the thickness of a hearty soup; add hot water if it is too thick. Taste and adjust the salt (to taste), sourness and sweetness: it should be tangy, warm and only slightly sweet.
For the tempering, heat the oil (2 tbsp) in a small pan over a medium-high heat. Add the mustard seeds (1 tsp) and, when they start to pop, the dried chillies (2 chillies), curry leaves (12 leaves) (stand back, they spit) and asafoetida (pinch). Let them sizzle for 10 seconds.
Pour the sizzling tempering over the sambar, stir, and scatter with coriander (to serve). Serve with plain rice, idli or dosa.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
See also
Chef’s notes
- Vegetables vary from home to home. Drumsticks (moringa pods), okra, pumpkin, white radish and potato are all traditional; use about 600 g of vegetables in total and add the quick-cooking ones last.
- No tamarind? Finish the sambar with the juice of a lemon instead, off the heat, as Laxmi Khurana does with her southern-style toovar dhal.
- Sambar powder brands vary a lot in heat. Start with 1½ tablespoons, taste after 5 minutes and add more if you like.
- Sambar keeps for 3 days in the fridge and thickens as it stands; loosen it with hot water when you reheat it. It also freezes well.
How this recipe was developed
We compared Laxmi Khurana’s southern toovar dhal and Rick Stein’s sambar with two of the most widely used South Indian home recipes and BBC Good Food’s sambar.
- Toor dal cooked to a cream. Every version starts with toor (toovar) dal; Hebbar’s Kitchen and Laxmi Khurana cook it until soft and mash or whisk it smooth.
- Sweet and sour. Laxmi Khurana describes her southern toovar dhal as sweet and sour, finished with lemon juice; Hebbar’s Kitchen balances tamarind with a little jaggery. We use tamarind and a teaspoon of sugar, with lemon as the fallback.
- Sambar powder. Hebbar’s Kitchen adds 2 tablespoons of sambar powder with the tamarind; Rick Stein grinds his own paste of chana dal, fenugreek, coriander seed, Kashmiri chillies, curry leaves and asafoetida. A good bought powder contains the same things.
- Tempering last. Rick Stein (BBC Food, 3.6/5 from 9 ratings) and Hebbar’s Kitchen both finish with a tempering of mustard seeds, dried chilli and curry leaves; Hebbar’s adds asafoetida.
- Vegetables. Rick Stein uses squash, tomato and green beans; Hebbar’s aubergine, carrot, beans, drumstick and potato; BBC Good Food’s Kerala-style sambar (John Torode, 4.6/5 from 22 ratings) is similar. Ours uses easy-to-find vegetables with shallots, as in Tamil homes.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 31 October 2026):
- Laxmi Khurana: Toovar Dhal (An Indian Housewife's Recipe Book), Bookey chapter summary
- Rick Stein: Spicy lentil soup with squash, tomato and green beans (sambar), Rick Stein's India (3.6/5, 9 ratings)
- Hebbar's Kitchen (Archana Hebbar): Sambar (mixed vegetable sambar)
- BBC Good Food (John Torode): Sambar (4.6/5, 22 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.