Simple, practical, and full of everyday flavour, Banana Bajji | Balekai Bajji is a vegan, vegetarian South Indian snacks made with simple everyday ingredients in about 25 minutes. The recipe lays out the ingredients and each cooking step clearly, so you can adjust seasoning, texture, and serving size for your own kitchen.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 5 minutes
  • Cook time: 20 minutes
  • Total time: 25 minutes
  • Yield: 3
  • Category: Snacks
  • Cuisine: South Indian

Ingredients

  • 2 medium raw unripe bananas (or plantains or vazhakkai or balekai or aratikaya)
  • 1 cup gram flour ((besan))
  • 2 tablespoons Rice Flour ((optional))
  • ¼ teaspoon red chilli powder
  • ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
  • 1 to 2 pinches baking soda
  • 1 generous pinch of asafoetida ((hing))
  • salt (as required)
  • ½ to ⅔ cup water (or add as required)
  • oil (for deep frying, as required)

Method

Making batter

  1. Rinse and then peel the bananas (vazhakkai). Chop them into two to three equal pieces, horizontally. Then take each piece and slice in 3 to 4 pieces vertically. Put the slices in water so that they do not get discoloured.
  2. Each slice should be of approximate 4 to 4.5 inches in height and ¼ inch in thickness.
  3. Prepare the batter by mixing besan, rice flour, baking soda, salt, red chilli powder, asafoetida and turmeric powder.
  4. Add little water in parts and mix. We need a thick batter. So avoid adding water once, as the batter may become thin. Mix to a thick batter without lumps.

Frying banana bajji

  1. Now pat dry the raw banana slices on a kitchen towel.
  2. Heat oil in a deep frying pan. Dip the banana slices in the batter and coat the banana slices completely with the batter.
  3. Add the batter coated slices in the hot oil and fry the plaintain pakoras till golden brown.
  4. Drain the fried plaintain pakoras on kitchen tissues to remove excess oil.
  5. Serve banana bajji hot with green chutney or coconut chutney or tomato ketchup.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.