6

Sawan Vrat

Recipes For Sweet Potato Vrat Snacks

In Hinduism, many occasions of religious fasting coincide with the changing of seasons, indicating perhaps a correlation between resting the body to cope with the change. The rainy months, in particular, give way to Sawan vrat, a holy fast dedicated to Lord Shiva and observed during the sacred Hindu month of Shravan that falls during the monsoon season. The fast involves eating light, pure (sattvic) food and avoiding grains and regular salt. Find Sawan vrat recipes that balance a range of tastes and textures below.

Since Sawan vrat often excludes regular grains and many everyday ingredients, sweet potato becomes an excellent base for fasting recipes. It can be transformed into multiple dishes on its own or paired with upvas-friendly flours like kuttu and amaranth. In fact, many everyday recipes can be adapted for Sawan vrat by replacing all-purpose flour with fasting flour, using mashed sweet potato for starch or binding where needed, and seasoning with sendha namak instead of regular salt. Here are a few sweet potato recipes you can follow to make vrat snacks for Sawan. 

A hint of natural sweetness and slightly darker colour but the same crispy exterior – that’s sweet potato French fries for you. And yes, it’s a vrat snack if you follow this sweet potato fasting recipe. Firstly, cut sweet potatoes into thin batons. This is one of the only recipes that doesn’t require the sweet potato to be boiled first. Soak the sweet potato strips briefly in water (about 20 minutes), then pat dry for crunchier results. Once dried, toss them with ghee and sendha namak. Now, bake, deep-fry, or air-fry until they are crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. 

Crispy and incredibly delicious, sweet potato tikki is a vrat snack you might just find yourself making on non-fasting days as well. All you need are 3 boiled sweet potatoes, buckwheat flour ( 2 tbsp for binding), cumin seeds, rock salt (to taste), finely chopped green chillies, and ghee for frying. Boil the sweet potatoes, then peel and mash them thoroughly. Now, in a bowl, mix in the other ingredients. Turn the mixture into small tikkis and shallow fry in a pan with ghee. For the hashbrowns, keep only the rock salt as seasoning and use grated sweet potato instead of mashed (squeeze out all moisture before binding). The rest remains the same. 

Is any Indian cuisine, even Sawan vrat recipes, complete without a chaat? In this case, you may not have chaat masala, but other, vrat-friendly kitchen staples do the trick. For this one, you need 2 boiled sweet potatoes, half a teaspoon of lemon juice, rock salt, 1 teaspoon of roasted peanuts, and some green coriander. Cut boiled sweet potatoes into small pieces. Top with rock salt, lemon juice, and chopped green chillies. Finally, garnish with roasted peanuts and coriander leaves and serve immediately. For a crunchier result, you can lightly roast the sweet potato pieces in an air fryer or on a tawa. 

These are savoury, hearty, and make for an excellent breakfast Sawan vrat recipe. To make these, start with boiling sweet potatoes and mashing them. You should have enough for two cups. This is broadly the first step in most recipes involving sweet potato. Now, mix the mashed sweet potatoes with ½ cup kuttu or rajgira flour, 1–2 tbsp yoghurt (optional), sendha namak, cumin, and a little water to make a thick batter. Cook the batter as you would a normal pancake, by spreading small ladlefuls onto a greased tawa and cooking on both sides until golden. You can also make them small and enjoy them as a tea-time snack or even as a kid-friendly lunch. If you have a waffle pan, you can use the same batter in a greased pan. 

It’s monsoon, and pakoras are on your mind pretty much all the time. Luckily, Sawan vrat recipes don’t ask you to stay away from pakoras; simply use vrat-friendly ingredients. Slice sweet potatoes into thin rounds and coat them in a thick batter made with kuttu or rajgira flour, sendha namak, cumin, and a little water. Deep-fry in hot ghee or a vrat-friendly oil until golden and crisp. Serve hot for a comforting rainy-day snack.

If you're looking for a light, crunchy vrat snack, sweet potato chips are hard to beat. Slice raw sweet potatoes into very thin rounds using a sharp knife or mandoline. Toss them with a little ghee and sendha namak, then arrange them in a single layer in an air fryer. Cook until crisp and lightly golden, shaking the basket halfway through for even cooking. You can also deep fry them if you want. 

These sweet potato fasting recipes are varied enough to make vrat snacks appear delicious and not monotonous. You can start with these and even come up with your own take on Sawan vrat recipes, be it adapted from regular dishes or a new item altogether. You can have them for breakfast, tea-time snacks, or even as part of a main meal. Just be careful that the ingredients you use are permissible as per the fasting rules.