Vada Pav is a popular Mumbai street food, made with a delicious Potato fritter sandwiched between the buns and chutneys.

Vada Pav is a one of the most popular street foods from Mumbai. This simple street food recipe has won hearts not only all over India, but also internationally. I know you may not believe it, but this recipe is so easy to make at home.
Whenever I visit Mumbai, a delicious Vada Pav, from a food joint near Mithibhai college is a must, along with Pav Bhaji and Tawa Pulao.
Jump to:
- What is a Vada Pav?
- How to Make this Recipe Step by Step
- How to Make the Green Chutney?
- How to Make Dates and Tamarind Chutney?
- How to Make the Special Vada Pav Chutney?
- How to Make the Batata Vada
- Assemble the Mumbai Vada Pav
- Expert Tips to Make This Recipe
- Storage Instructions and Serving Suggestions
- More Recipes From The Blog
- FAQ's about This Recipe
- Vada Pav
What is a Vada Pav?
This recipe consists of 4 main components, the batata vada, pav (buns/ dinner rolls), and the chutneys. The famous garlic chutney is a dry chutney, which is the star ingredient of this recipe! It elevates the experience of eating this street food recipe to the whole another level.
How to Make this Recipe Step by Step
You make the Vada Pav in 8 easy steps
- Boil the Potatoes.
- In the Meantime Make the chutneys. Make garlic chutney, green chutney and Dates and Tamarind chutney.
- Once the potatoes are boiled, make the Potato Masala for the Batata Vada.
- Make the batter to deep fry the prepared batata vadas
- Deep Fry The Batata Vadas
- Assemble the Mumbai Vada Pav
Traditionally, the pav are not toasted, but it is one's personal prefrence. My husband and I like them lightly toasted.
How to Make the Green Chutney?
I already have a green chutney recipe that is already on the blog. It is versatile and works for all the chaat and street food recipes. This recipe needs cilantro, mint, lemon juice, sugar, salt, and cumin powder. I add six to the recipe, to adjust the consistency of the chutney. I have written a quick and perfect cilantro chutney recipe for the vada pav below in the recipe card.
How to Make Dates and Tamarind Chutney?
Here's my 10-minute instant pot dates and tamarind chutney recipe. It is easy and quick to make and uses only a few ground spices, dates, and store-bought tamarind paste. I have also mentioned a quick stove-top version of tamarind chutney using store-bought tamarind paste below in the recipe card.
How to Make the Special Vada Pav Chutney?
In a small frying pan, add oil and 5-6 cloves of garlic. Once the garlic browns add 1 cup of freshly shredded coconut. Toast it until the moisture evaporates from the coconut on a medium-low flame. Then add red chili powder and salt. In a spice blender, blend the prepared mix. Your dry garlic chutney aka vada pav chutney is ready.
How to Make the Batata Vada
The batata vada is a deep fried potato fritter. To make this, we start with boiling the potatoes. I prefer boiling the potatoes using my Instant Pot. Once the potatoes are boiled, peel the skin off while they are still hot. It is easier to remove the skin of boiled potatoes while they are hot.
Mash the potatoes, and prepare a tempering. The tempering is super simple. In oil, add mustard seeds, minced ginger, garlic green chilies, and curry leaves. Add the mashed potatoes, turmeric and salt. Mix everything well. Finish with freshly chopped cilantro. Make the chickpea flour batter, and then deep fry the prepared lemon sized batata vadas in hot oil.
Assemble the Mumbai Vada Pav
Once you have all the components of the Vada Pav ready, cut the pav in the middle using a bread knife. Don't slice it all the way, just enough to toast, add chutneys and vada to it. Then, lightly toast the pav with a little butter on low flame. You just want your pav to get soft and buttery.
Once the pav is lightly toasted, add all three chutneys, on both sides of the pav, and add the prepared batata vadas. Now lightly press pav and serve with more chutney.
Expert Tips to Make This Recipe
- The recipe has 3 main components. The pav, chutneys and the batata vadas. You can plan to make the chutneys ahead of time and keep boiled potatoes ready a day ahead of making the vada pav.
- The chutneys are a very important component of the recipe, and I highly recommend all three chutneys to make your vada pav. If you don't have time to make the green chutney and tamarind chutney, you can use store-bought chutneys, but definitely do make the garlic chutney at home.
- The Batata Vada has a very simple potato masala. I recommend using golden potatoes, so the vadas feel moist and delicious. Russet potatoes can make the potato masala a bit too dry.
- The chickpea batter needs to be thicker for batata vadas, than for any other Indian fritters we typically make.
- Use fresh Indian ladi pav to make this recipe. They taste the best. The other buns/ dinner rolls are sweet, which don't taste great with vada pav.
- If you like cheesy food, add some cheese to your vada pav and toast it with a little butter, they will taste delicious.
Storage Instructions and Serving Suggestions
Vada Pav tastes best when served right off the pan, piping hot. So frying and assembling the vada pavs go hand in hand. Serve with extra chutneys on the side.
You can make the batata vadas and chutneys ahead of time. I like to reheat the batata vadas using an air fryer at 300F for about 5 minutes. The chutneys stay fresh for up to a week.
You can also freeze the batata vadas and reheat them in the air fryer.
More Recipes From The Blog
FAQ's about This Recipe
According to what I have read, Ashok Vaidya was the first person in Mumbai to start selling vada pav outside Dadar station in Mumbai in 1966.
Vada pav tastes best when enjoyed warm, with a side of fried green chiles, cilantro chutney, tamarind chutney, special garlic chutney and a hot cup of masala chai.
Vada Pav
These nutrional values are automatically generated. Use them for estimation only.
Equipment
- 1 Pressure Cooker / Instant Pot
- 1 Pot for Deep Frying
- Frying/ Sauce Pan
Ingredients
For Potato Filling
- 600 Gms Golden Potatoes 3 large potatoes/ 4 medium potatoes
- 6-7 Garlic Cloves Pounded
- ยฝ inch Ginger Pounded
- 2 Thai Green Chilies Pounded
- ยฝ Teaspoon Mustard Seeds
- โ Teaspoon Asafetida
- 7-8 Curry Leaves
- ยผ Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- ยพ Teaspoon Salt
- 2 Tablespoon Cilantro Finely Chopped
For Garlic Chutney
- 2 Teaspoons Peanut Oil
- 6 Garlic Cloves
- 1 Cup Shredded Coconut Fresh
- 3 Teaspoons Kashmiri Red Chili Powder
- ยฝ Teaspoon Salt
For Green Chutney
- 1 Bunch Cilantro
- 2 Garlic Cloves
- ยฝ inch ginger
- 2 Tablespoons Lime Juice
- ยผ Teaspoon Cumin Powder
- ยผ Teaspoon Salt
- ยฝ Teaspoon Sugar
- 1 Tablespoon Water as needed
ForTamarind Chutney
- ยผ Cup Tamarind Paste
- 1 Cup Water
- ยผ Cup Jaggery
- ยผ Cup Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Kashmiri Red Chili Powder
- ยฝ Teaspoon Cumin Powder
- ยฝ Teaspoon Ginger Powder
- ยฝ Teaspoon Salt
For Chickpea Flour Batter
- 1 Cup Besan
- ยผ Teaspoon Turmeric
- ยฝ Teaspoon Salt as needed
- โ Teaspoon Baking Soda
- ยฝ Cup Water as needed
- Oil For Deep Frying
- Butter To Toast the Buns
Fry The Salted Chilies
- 10 Thai Green Chilies
- ยผ Teaspoon Salt
Instructions
Boil The Potatoes
- Boil the potatoes using pressure cooker or the instant pot.
- Meanwhile the potatoes are boiling, start to make the chutneys.
Make Garlic Chutney
- Add 2 teaspoons of oil in a small frying pan. Add about 6 garlic cloves. If the garlic cloves are small, add about 8-9 cloves.
- Let them fry until golden brown, on a medium low flame.
- Once the garlic cloves are golden brown in color, add 1 cup of freshly shredded coconut. If you don't have fresh coconut, use frozen.
- Cook it until it is toasted and loses moisture. It should take about 2 minutes.
- Turn off the flame, and add 3 teaspoons of kashmiri red chili powder and half teaspoon of salt.
- Blitz it into a coarse powder like chutney, using a spice grinder or blender. Keep it aside.
Make Cilantro Chutney
- In a blender jar add cilantro, garlic, ginger green chilies, lemon juice, cumin powder, salt and sugar.
- Add a little bit water, and grind it until it forms a smooth paste like chutney
- You don't want a very runny chutney for this recipe.
Make Tamarind Chutney
- I like to use store bought tamarind paste to make this quick and easy chutney.
- Add tamarind paste, water, salt, jaggery, sugar and spices to a sauce pan.
- Keep stirring every now and then.
- Cook it until it thickens.
Make the Potato Masala
- Once the potatoes are boiled, add them to a mixing bowl. Mash them using a potato masher.
- Use a mortar pastel to pound ginger, garlic and green chilies. Keep it aside.
- Now in a frying pan, add oil. Once hot, add mustard seeds, asafetida, curry leaves, and the pounded ginger, garlic, and green chilies.
- Cook the ginger garlic and green chilies, until it starts to brown.
- Add the mashed potatoes and turn off the flame. Add ยผ Teaspoon of turmeric and about ยพth teaspoon of salt.
- Mix everything well.
- Now add finely chopped cilantro and mix it again.
- Now make lemon sized balls. If you make big vadas, this recipe will yield, about 8 vada pavs. And if you make them a tad bit smaller, the recipe yields about 10 vada pavs.
Make the Chickpea Flour Batter
- Add 1 cup of chickpea flour (besan) to a mixing bowl.
- To this add turmeric, and salt.
- Now add little water at a time, and start whisking the batter.
- You want a lump-free neither too thick nor too thin consistency of the batter.
- Keep oil on a medium high for frying.
- Once the oil is hot, add about an โ th teaspoon of baking soda to the prepared batter and give it a good whisk it.
Fry The Vadas
- Make sure the oil is hot before you add the vadas into the oil.
- I like to test it by adding little drops of chickpea flour batter in the oil, if it comes up and starts to float, the oil it ready. If the batter sinks, and takes time to come up, then let the oil heat up for another 5 minutes, and test again.
- Add the prepared potato filling balls to the prepared besan batter.
- Use a fork or spoon, to coat the batter on the potato filling from all sides.
- Drop the potato balls carefully in the hot oil.
- Depending on the size of the kadai, add more or less vadas at the same time for frying. You don't want your kadai to be very crowded. I use about 8inch kadai, and I fry 3 vadas at a time.
- Once the batata vada, starts to lightly turn golden and crisp on one side, using a strainer ladle turn them to cook from all sides.
- When the batata vadas look crispy and golden from the outside, it's time to take them out.
- Layer a plate with a paper towel. Place the fried vadas in this plate to drain off the excess oil.
- Similarly fry all the vadas.
Fry The Green Chilies
- place a small slit the chilies. Add them to the oil using a straining ladle. Take them out in 10 seconds.
- Place them on a papertowel lined plate to drain off the excess oil. Add a sprinkle of salt.
- You have to serve the vada pav while the vadas are still warm.
Assemble the Vada Pav
- Cut the pav without breaking it into two halves.
- Lightly toast the pav with little butter on either side. You can totally skip this step if you wish.
- Now add cilantro chutney, tamarind chutney and garlic chutney on the sliced pav.
- Add the prepared Batata vada.Add the fried salted green chili, if you can tolerate spice. Lightly press the pav down, and serve it warm with extra chutneys and masala chai.
Notes
- Frying the Batata Vadas -ย It is important to fry the batata vadas properly. If the oil is too hot, the vadas won't cook properly from the inside. The oil is not hot enough, the vadas will be very oily. So heat the oil in a kadai, on medium-high flame. Once the oil is hot, add the batata vadas for frying.
Your Thoughts