Indian vegetarian cuisine
India has the world's largest number of vegetarians. Many communities in India have always been vegetarian. Many Indians who do not regularly follow a vegetarian diet may adopt one during religious festivals.
Also, many Indian vegetarians eschew eggs as well as meat.[1] However, all consume dairy products. Veganism is generally not well known in India. Each of India's 29 states provides different, yet popular vegetarian cuisines.
There are many vegetarian cuisines across India.[2] Some of them are:
- Punjabi vegetarian cuisine:[3] common in popular 'Vaishnav' dhabas, e.g. Dal makhani, pindi chana.
- Maharashtrian cuisine: e.g. Misal
- Rajasthani cuisine: Baati Churma
- Marwari vegetarian cuisine: e.g. dal-bati
- Marwari sweets: e.g. Choorma and Lapsi
- Gujarati cuisine: e.g. dhokla
- Jain (Satvika) cuisine: e.g. gatte
- UP vegetarian cuisine: e.g. Poori & Halwa
- Karnataka vegetarian cuisine: e.g. dosa
- Andhra cuisine: e.g. [Pulihora, attu, charu, pappu,]
- Tamil Nadu vegetarian cuisine: e.g. rasam, sambar
- Odia cuisine and sweets: e.g. Pakhala
- Bengali sweets: e.g. Rasgulla, ChamCham
The Indian vegetarian cuisine is very diverse and elaborated. Every Indian states has unique vegetarian dishes to offer. Most of the Indian sweet dishes are prepared without egg and basically from milk products and are therefore all vegetarian in nature.