Roasted Cholai Beyond Laddoos: A Place at Breakfast

You may know cholai from "Cholai ke Laddoo" and still wonder what to do with a packet of it on an ordinary morning. A bowl of curd, sliced banana and a spoonful of roasted cholai is one answer. Most of the meal is already familiar.

Cholai is amaranth, also known as rajgira or ramdana. It is a seed that we eat much like a grain. When popped, it becomes small and airy, quite different from raw amaranth or rajgira flour. That difference matters when you’re choosing what to put in your bowl.

Amaranth has even found its way into coffee research

In a 2024 study published in the International Journal of Food Science & Technology, researchers tested coffee creamers formulated with popped amaranth flour. Four formulations and a control were evaluated by 400 consumers in two regions of Mexico. How much people liked the product was associated with their willingness to buy it in both regions.

This was a specially developed creamer, using flour made from the popped grain. What interests us is the possibility it illustrates: an ingredient associated with certain foods can find a place in something quite different.

For your own kitchen, the experiment can be much smaller.

Give it a place in a meal you already make

If you eat curd and fruit, sprinkle roasted cholai over the top just before eating. Start with a little, so you can notice what it adds without changing the whole bowl.

If you prefer a savoury breakfast, try plain curd with roasted cumin, a little salt and cholai. Or add it to milk with chopped dates and see whether you prefer it freshly mixed or slightly softened.

Pay attention to the texture. Popped grains change as they take up liquid, so adding cholai at the end gives you a different experience from leaving it in the bowl. Finding the version you enjoy is part of making it your own.

You can still make the laddoos. There is simply more you can do with the packet between batches.

At Kalash Food Products, we roast and pack cholai under the Deepak brand. We want people to feel as comfortable reaching for it at breakfast as they do when making a familiar sweet. Showing what to do with it is part of that work.

Try Deepak Roasted Cholai in your next breakfast bowl.