Simple, practical, and full of everyday flavour, Rasam Recipe (South Indian) is a vegan, vegetarian South Indian appetizer, side dish made with simple everyday ingredients in about 30 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: 20 minutes
  • Cook time: 10 minutes
  • Total time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: 3
  • Category: Appetizer, Side Dish
  • Cuisine: South Indian

Ingredients

  • 1 lemon sized tamarind (- approx 1 tablespoon tightly packed seedless tamarind (imli))
  • ½ cup warm or hot water (- for soaking tamarind)
  • ½ cup chopped tomatoes (or 1 medium-sized tomato)
  • 2 cups water
  • 10 to 12 curry leaves
  • 2 pinch asafoetida ((hing))
  • ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
  • 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
  • 2 to 3 dry red chilies (- broken and deseeded)
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves ((cilantro))
  • 2 tablespoons oil (- gingelly oil (raw sesame oil) or any neutral oil)
  • salt (as required)
  • 3 teaspoons cumin seeds
  • 2 teaspoons black peppercorns
  • 6 to 7 garlic cloves ((medium-sized) - roughly chopped)

Method

Preparation

  1. Soak the tamarind in warm water for 20 to 30 mins.
  2. Squeeze the pulp from the soaked tamarind. Strain and keep aside.
  3. In a dry grinder or coffee grinder, powder the cumin seeds, whole black pepper and garlic to a semi fine consistency.

Making rasam

  1. Heat oil in a pan. Crackle the mustard seeds first.
  2. Add the curry leaves, red chilies & asafoetida and fry for some seconds until the red chilies deepen their color.
  3. Fry on a low flame so that the spices don't burn.
  4. Than add the tomatoes and saute until the tomatoes soften.
  5. Then add the semi coarsely powdered cumin, black pepper and garlic along with turmeric powder.
  6. Stir and then add the tamarind pulp. Add water and stir well. Season with salt.
  7. Just let the entire rasam come to a gentle simmer uncovered on low heat.
  8. Then turn off the heat and add chopped coriander leaves.
  9. Serve rasam hot as a soup or with steamed rice.

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.