This easy Indian raita recipe makes a deliciously refreshing yogurt side or salad of diced cucumber, tomato and red onion with fresh fragrant mint and coriander. It’s the perfect cooling accompaniment to any spiced dish, from curries to biryanis, but can be eaten with pickles, relishes, flat breads or papadams. Super easy to make, it’s also very versatile.
We love to make this wonderfully easy Indian raita recipe to eat with this Indian-style Burmese curry, which we make regularly. It’s my favourite curry. We serve it with rice (I adore this Burmese coconut rice), papadams, chilli and lime pickles, and a spicy mango chutney. My idea of spice heaven! It’s also a perfect side to this Punjabi chole or chickpea curry and tamarind eggplant.
Raita is a refreshing, cooling, Indian yoghurt sauce, dip, salad, or side, depending on the consistency, how you eat it, and what you eat it with, as raita is incredibly versatile. Raita can be used as a dip for papadams or flatbreads, such as roti, paratha, chapati or naan, and you can serve raita as a cooling accompaniment to spicy curries, grilled kebabs and savoury biryanis. My Indian friend, Lubna, recently gave me a simple raita as a side to a biryani she had made me.
You probably already know and love raita if you’re a lover of Indian cuisine – and I should say Indian cuisines, because Indian food, like Chinese food, Italian food and Thai food, to name a few, is a regional cuisine, with ‘Indian cuisine’ being an umbrella for a number of regional cuisines.
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Easy Indian Raita Recipe for a Cooling Accompaniment to Spicy Dishes
This easy Indian raita recipe is one of my favourite raita recipes. We’ve been making variations of raita, most often in one of its simplest forms of yoghurt, cucumber and fresh mint, for as long as we’ve been eating and cooking Indian food, which is over 30 years.
We’ve eaten Indian food everywhere from Mumbai and Dubai to Sydney and Singapore, and found raita in many forms. Raita can be very watery (like cucumber in milk) and very creamy (like an Eastern European cucumber salad), and everything in between. Raita can be spiced, or not; laden with vegetables, or lean; even dolloped with chutney.
A Cooling Yoghurt Accompaniment
Raita is a cool yoghurt accompaniment that can be served as a sauce, side, salad or dip. I don’t know about you, but I adore all those cooling fermented milk-based sauces, dips, sides, salads, spreads, and soups around the world made with yogurt, sour cream or kefir, fresh herbs such as mint, coriander or dill, and typically cucumbers or other vegetables.
The Nordic countries all have fresh dill-flavoured fermented-milk dips and sauces. In Iceland, there’s skyronnes made with skyr, a traditional Icelandic yogurt; in Finland, tillikastike is prepared with kermaviili, a Finnish curd cream, and the Swedes have dillsås, a dill sauce made with gräddfil or sour cream.
In nearby Russia, there’s okroshka, a kefir-based soup that’s not too far removed from raita, and in the Caucasus, there’s ovdukh. Poland has mizeria, which is similar to tarator from the Balkans and talattouri in Cyprus, which is similar to Greek tzatziki, made with yogurt and cucumber.
In Turkey it cacik in Turkish, which is pronounced as jajeek, which is the name of the same dish in Iraq. In neighbouring Iran, there’s ash-e doogh, which has a greater variety of herbs, along with raisins, black pepper, and sometimes nuts.
And in India there is raita, which comes in many forms.
A Basic Indian Raita
The most basic Indian raita recipe calls for little more than yoghurt, salt, pepper, and cumin, according to the legendary Indian cookbook author Camellia Panjabi, in her book 50 Great Curries of India, published in 1995 and now considered a ‘modern’ classic of Indian cuisine.
Bombay-born Camellia Panjabi was with India’s Taj Hotels for 25 years, opened the Taj Mumbai’s legendary Tanjore restaurant and Indian restaurants at Taj hotels around the world, as well as her own restaurant, The Bombay Brasserie, one of London’s first Indian regional restaurants. Her sister Namita Panjabi opened London’s equally pioneering restaurant, Chutney Mary.
In Dharamjit Singh’s classic book Indian Cookery, published 25 years earlier in 1970, there’s just one raita recipe. An author, journalist and chef, and student of Indian art, folklore and philosophy, Singh was born in 1922 in Lahore in Punjab, then part of ‘British India’, but after the 1947 Partition became Pakistan.
Singh’s raita ingredients list begins with sliced cucumbers (salted and drained), chopped onions or spring onions, and boiled grated marrow (a type of squash), and yoghurt whipped with salt, a crushed garlic clove, and ground black pepper.
His recipe calls for refrigerating the raita for several hours, then garnishing the raita with a circle of finely chopped parsley, ground paprika, and black cumin, and sprinkling on a little more black pepper. He says it can be served with other dishes or eaten on its own.
While you might think his single raita recipe is reflective of a simpler way of eating, you might be right. Singh laments in the introduction to his book how twenty years ago (in 1950) an Indian meal typically consisted of a meat and fish dish, five or more vegetable dishes, one of which would have been lentils, another rice, several pickles and chutneys (including one made from fresh herbs and fruit or vegetables), yoghurt and salad, and a sweet dish.
He writes how all the dishes were served on the table at once and people composed their own meals, eating whatever dishes they like, in whatever order and combination. He laments that most household meals have been reduced to one meat or fish dish, two vegetable dishes, lentils or rice, not more than three chutneys or pickles, yoghurt (raita), maybe a salad, and a sweet. That still sounds good to me! Note the presence of raita.
Raita In Its Many Forms
Raita can be very watery (as thin as milk sometimes) or very creamy (like an Eastern European cucumber salad), and everything in between. While the most basic raita is essentially a yoghurt sauce, when vegetables are added it’s more like a yoghurt salad or yoghurt dip, depending on the consistency.
The consistency really depends on the home cook or restaurant chef, as much as the region and culinary culture. In India, our experience of raita was that it was often a very thin consistency. Whereas when we’ve had raita in Indian restaurants in the Indian diasporas it tends to be a thicker consistency.
There are also many kinds of raita beyond the basic raita and simpler raita described above. In her book, Camellia has recipes for raita with potato, raita with spinach, and raita with tomato, and says that other ingredients are also used, such as pumpkin, eggplant, ‘bhoondi’ (tiny balls of fried besan or gram flour; we have a boondi raita recipe here) and sev, from the Bombay Mix snack. She encourages home cooks to experiment.
Just a few quick tips to making this easy Indian raita recipe.
Tips to Making this Easy Indian Raita Recipe
I only have a few quick tips to making this easy Indian raita recipe as it’s a cinch to make, but let’s start at the beginning with the all-important ingredient, yoghurt, which in India is also called curd.
Yoghurt
Use an all-natural whole milk yoghurt. Camellia Panjabi says either full fat or reduced fat yoghurt can be used in a raita, but if making raita with full fat yoghurt, she recommends adding water to thin it out. An Indian cook friend thins her raita out with a little milk.
Not traditional, but I like a creamy Greek-style yogurt when I can get it, which isn’t always possible to source in Siem Reap. Otherwise, a thinner natural yoghurt, which is more authentic.
Classic Indian recipes call for whisking or whipping the yoghurt to even out the consistency, or whisking the yoghurt with spices to evenly distribute them.
This does not mean whipping the yoghurt so that it’s similar to whipped cream, like you see on social media these days, where the yoghurt is often whipped with cream.
Spices
Ground cumin, also called cumin powder, is nearly always used in raita recipes. Camellia Panjabi also uses paprika powder, but I love a little more heat, although I appreciate that raita is meant to be a cooling sauce or side.
I’ve also spotted chaat masala used in a number of raita recipes and I just adore it. While ground cumin and chilli powder (or paprika if you prefer) are easy to find, chaat masala may be trickier to source. If you don’t have a supermarket with a well-stocked Indian food section, as we’re lucky to have, look for a specialist Indian supermarket. You can also buy chaat masala online.
Some traditional Indian raita recipes whisk the spices into the yoghurt, while others simply sprinkle the spices on top of the raita just before serving. Camellia Panjabi tends to combine the cumin with the yoghurt, but sprinkle the paprika on top of the raita. Do as you like.
Vegetables
Use really fresh crunchy cucumbers – if the skin is bitter, peel it; if there are too many seeds in the centre, discard them – and sweet ripe red tomatoes. Whether you remove the tomato seeds or not is entirely up to you. I like them, but many don’t.
Most traditional Indian raita recipes call for white, brown or green onions. I use red onions or the easier to find purple shallots for colour as much as flavour.
Fresh Herbs
Our Indian raita recipe calls for fresh mint and coriander, but many classic Indian raita recipes call just for fresh coriander leaves. A combination of coriander and mint is really lovely and fragrant. I’ve also spotted dried herbs in some Indian raita recipes. Fresh is best as far as I’m concerned, but use what you can source.
Easy Indian Raita Recipe
Ingredients
- 200 g natural plain yoghurt - not traditional but I love Greek style yoghurt; use fat-free or full fat, but not sweetened.
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ¼ tsp chaat masala
- ¼ tsp chilli powder
- ¼ tsp white pepper
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 100 g cucumber - peeled and diced
- 50 g red tomato - ripe, finely diced
- 50 g red onion or purple shallots - finely diced
- 2 tbsp mint leaves - fresh, roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp coriander leaves - fresh, roughly chopped
Garnish
- fresh mint leaves
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, whisk the yoghurt, then use the whisk to combine the yogurt and ground spices, salt and pepper, so that the spices don’t clump together.
- Add the diced cucumber, tomato and onion and chopped fresh herbs and combine well. Taste and adjust seasoning and spices to suit your palate.
- Transfer to an air-tight container and refrigerate to chill until you’re ready to eat.
- Just before serving, garnish the raita with fresh mint. Optional: but you could also sprinkle on some ground paprika, which is traditional.
- Serve the raita as a cooling side to spiced Indian curries, with rice, pickles and relishes, and flat breads or pappadums.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make this easy Indian raita recipe in the comments below as we love to hear how our recipes turned out for you.
That’s a really complex raita – I could just eat it alone with pappadums,like a dip!
Hi Isabella, it’s fantastic eaten alone with pappadums, isn’t it? I also recommend double-dipping into spicy pickles or a chutney or relish. Thanks for dropping by!
This was brilliant with the chickpea curry – both new to us but we loved them, thank you. Will definitely be back to explore your archive. Kaz
Hi Kaz, that’s what we love to hear! Thanks for taking the time to drop by and let us know. If you’re keen to dig into our archives, I recommend creating an account where you can save your favourite recipes. Just click on the heart on the right side of any page and it will enable to you save the recipe (or other post) in your own account. Let us know if you have any questions in the comments at the end of any post.
mine came out delicious but a bit like a wet salad. not sure if this is the consistency it is meant to be. this was my first attempt at anything indian based. besides basic curry.
Hi Joseph, if you followed the recipe then that’s raita :) And, yes, the most basic raita is essentially a yoghurt sauce, but when vegetables are added it’s often referred to as a wet salad, as well as a dip, depending on the consistency. And the consistency really depends on the cook/chef.
We’ve been eating and cooking Indian food for over 30 years and found raita can be very watery (like milk sometimes) or very creamy (like an Eastern European cucumber salad), and everything in between. When we’ve had raita in restaurants in the Indian diasporas it tends to be a thicker consistency, whereas in India it was often very thin.
Camellia Panjabi, in the classic ’50 Great Curries of India’, published in 1995, calls for whisking or whipping the yoghurt in her raita recipes BUT she says that full fat or reduced fat yoghurt can be used, and if making it with full at to add water to thin it. Mumbai-born Camellia was with the legendary Taj Hotels for 25 years and was responsible for opening London’s first proper restaurant that identified Indian dishes by their region, as she was so frustrated with the generic Banglasdehi ‘Indian’ food in the UK.
While we’ve come to expect a typical raita to be made with cucumber, Camellia has recipes for raita with potato, spinach and tomato, and says that other ingredients are also used, such as pumpkin and eggplant, as well as ‘bhoondi’, tiny balls of fried besan or gram flour, and sev, from the Bombay mix snack. She encourages home cooks to experiment.
If you love a curry, please try our Burmese curry https://grantourismotravels.com/burmese-chicken-curry-recipe/ or Burmese-Indian chicken curry https://grantourismotravels.com/burmese-indian-style-chicken-curry-recipe/ and let us know what you think. They’re two of my favourites.