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Rainy Season Food

Healthy With Some Deep-Fried Alternatives That Are Surprisingly Delicious

Quick Summary

India has a problem, and the rainy season food in particular exacerbates it, making everyone long for pakoras, samosas and other deep-fried foods. Excellent choice for the taste buds and spiking your dopamine, but terrible for your body and gut. This does not mean you turn snacking into a punishment; just make sure to make some room for something like an air fryer or an oven, or go for some ‘jugad’ to steam or bake some of the favourite monsoon snacks.

Deep Dive

Rainy season food has an oil problem, and it starts the minute the first showers hit, and many people put the kadhai on the stove and get to making pakoras, bhajiyas, vada, all other deep-fried foods on repeat because hot, crunchy, and greasy genuinely does feel like the right answer to grey skies and a growling stomach. But monsoon is also the season when your gut cannot tolerate heavy, oil-laden food, given how much slower digestion tends to run in high humidity, and deep-frying isn't even doing the flavour any favours; it just masks whatever's underneath in batter and oil. Baking, air-frying, steaming, and roasting give you the same crunch, flavour, and warmth, and more often than not, the actual flavour, without the 2 pm food coma. So here are some monsoon-ready dishes that are good for your body and taste buds.

Food Safety During Monsoons

Before the list, a few precautions are worth keeping in mind during the monsoon season, especially when it comes to monsoon food, since humidity changes how food behaves. Health authorities, including the FSSAI, flag June to September as the peak season for gastrointestinal illness, largely because bacteria multiply more rapidly once humidity exceeds 80%. A few good food habits can help in keeping food-borne illnesses at bay:

• Skip raw salads and chutneys made with raw ingredients: they spoil quickly in humid weather and are best replaced with fully cooked side dishes.

• Go easy on leafy greens, especially raw or undercooked ones. Their broad, damp surfaces trap moisture and bacteria more readily than those of denser vegetables. This doesn't rule out a leafy herb like coriander or fenugreek, and it just means washing it thoroughly under running water and cooking it well, never eating it raw.

• Boil or filter drinking water

• Don't let cooked food sit out for more than a couple of hours; refrigerate leftovers promptly.

With these simple tips and tricks, you can still consume seasonal greens, as part of the many monsoon foods, in the form of pakoras, air-fried roasted corn, cutlets and more. So here’s the list.

1. Air-Fried Pakoras

Besan-battered vegetables cooked in an air fryer, rather than in a kadhai, still come out golden and crisp. With this equipment, the circulating hot air does the same dehydrating, browning job that oil normally would. The health trade-off is significant: using an air fryer can cut oil content by up to 80% compared to deep frying, while also lowering levels of acrylamide, a compound linked to several long-term health risks that forms when starchy batters are exposed to very high heat in oil. Pick the typical onion, potato, and spinach (washed well, or use monsoon greens) for the fritters, and air-fry at 180°C for 12-15 minutes, flipping once halfway.

2. Roasted Corn

Bhutta, or corn, is a staple rainy-season food, with many vendors on streetsides roasting it over hot coals. You can make it at home too by cutting down the corn into cobs or keeping it whole, and roasting it over an open gas flame. Then rub it with lime, chilli powder, and salt to make a healthy food for the rainy season. You can also use the corn kernels on the cob to make roasted bhutta chaat, where the corn is air-fried with a mix of masalas and all-purpose flour, then tossed with lime juice, chaat masala, diced onions, coriander, salt, and tomatoes.

3. Dhokla

The OG steamed Gujarati delicacy, which also extends its steamed goodness to recipes like khaman and khandvi, dhokla is a steamed and fermented besan cake that is close to the ideal monsoon food on paper: it's cooked through, light on the stomach, and the fermentation process itself does nutritional work. Fermenting the batter before steaming has been shown to reduce anti-nutrients in the besan-rice mix and improve digestibility, while introducing gut-friendly probiotics that a fried snack simply can't offer. A five-minute tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves at the end is the only oil dhokla ever needs.

4. Baked Mushroom

Use fresh, whole, or halved mushrooms to make baked mushrooms. If you are sticking to special mushrooms that are only found during monsoons, like the olmi mushroom, make sure to wash them well and cut them as needed. Toss the mushrooms in a little oil, garlic, and herbs, then roast at 200°C until they release their liquid and turn golden at the edges. There is no need for a batter for them to taste indulgent. Mushrooms are also one of the few monsoon foods that naturally contain vitamin D, particularly varieties grown under UV exposure, a useful nutrient during a season when sunlight is in short supply.

5. Multigrain Bruschetta

Toasted multigrain bread, made with khapli atta or any other nutrient-dense atta, topped with sautéed vegetables, garlic confit, and a drizzle of olive oil, will turn a monsoon evening craving into something that's actually doing double duty when it comes to health. Bread made from whole grains contains more fibre and has a lower glycemic index than refined white bread, which helps achieve the fuller-for-longer effect a monsoon food should have. Toasting the bread rather than deep-frying it will keep this one entirely oil-light.

6. Steamed Panki

Another Gujarati classic, a steamed delicacy made with a thin rice-and-besan batter, steamed in flat strips between banana leaves, is essentially built for the monsoon. This Gujarati recipe is fully cooked through steaming and requires no oil in the cooking process, and the banana leaf lends a mild, earthy aroma that no fried snack can replicate. It's tempered with a tadka of cumin and green chilli, which adds ample flavour to a monsoon food or snack like this, without a drop of frying oil.

7. Air-Fried Kothimbir Vadi

Kothimbir vadi is a snack made from coriander leaves that is typically deep-fried after steaming, but the air fryer handles the second step just as well. All it needs is a quick 8-10 minutes at 180°C to crisp the cut pieces after they're steamed and set. Fresh coriander is a herb, not a leafy vegetable, but the same rule applies: wash it thoroughly and avoid using it raw when eating it as part of monsoon food. Fully cooked, it has good digestive and antioxidant benefits, largely from its vitamin C and quercetin content.

8. Steamed Muthia

If fresh fenugreek (methi) leaves are not available, you can use arbi leaves to make patra, which are widely available during monsoons. Muthia is made with washed and chopped fresh fenugreek leaves in a whole-wheat and besan dough. It is cut into small logs and steamed before being tempered Gujarati-style to add more flavour. Methi leaves are worth cooking with in this season because their fibre content supports digestion and helps steady blood sugar, benefits that extend to both fresh and dry leaves. Steaming keeps the dish light enough to eat as a rainy-season food, without any of the heaviness that fried muthia usually carries.

The Healthy Swap At A Glance

Monsoon Food Made Healthy

Moderation is key when it comes to monsoon food, which tends to lean towards deep-fried relishes like pakoras, bhajiyas, samosas, kachoris, chaats and more. You can still have them while interspersing them with healthier snacking options, which range from steamed and roasted to baked delights like roasted corn and muthia. The options above are exactly those, and you can get creative by swapping the usual deep-fried dishes for shallow-fried ones or by choosing niche snacks that already come in a healthier form.