Bread Pakora

About Bread Pakora

Bread Pakora are simply bread slices dipped in spiced gram flour batter & fried. These are popular as a North Indian street food and also eaten for breakfast. Bread pakora are made in 2 ways. The most popular version has a spiced potato stuffing in between 2 slices of bread, make similar to a sandwich. It is later dipped in a gram flour batter and deep fried until crisp. So these are basically fried sandwiches with a spicy & tangy potato filling.

The other way of making bread pakora is to simply dip a day old bread triangles in batter and deep fry. These are called as bread bajji in South India.

About the Recipe

My super simple recipe will help you make street style crisp bread pakoras at home. Though the street version has these deep fried, you can also shallow fry, bake or even air fry these.

In the step-by-step photos, I have shown how to make the potato filling, stuffing and frying them. Apart from that I have also updated the instructions to shallow fry these on a tawa, bake and air fry for an healthier option.

Deep frying these bread pakoras is faster than the other methods as they do take time. So deep fry them if you are making a lot, say for a large family or party.

You can easily adapt this recipe to make the plain bread pakoras too. Skip making the filling. Just quarter or halve the bread slices diagonally and dip them in the pakora batter. Then deep fry them as mentioned in the recipe.

The stuffed bread pakodas are made similar to the bread rolls & bread bonda but they are not the same. These crisp fried delicious bread pakora are heavy and go great as a weekend or party snack. Serve them with coriander chutney, Green Chutney, Mint Chutney or with Red Garlic Chutney.

How to Make Bread Pakora 

Prepare Potato Stuffing

1. Steam or boil 3 medium sized potatoes until just cooked. Do not over cook as they turn soggy. I steam them in a pressure cooker. You can also use a steamer or just boil in the pan with little water.

You can also pressure cook the whole potatoes in cooker for 2 to 3 whistles. When the pressure releases, remove and check. They have to be fork tender. To boil them in instant pot, place the whole potatoes on a trivet and pressure cook them for 5 to 7 mins depending on the size.

Once the potatoes cool down a bit, peel the skin. I have used very few green peas which I steamed along with the potatoes. You can skip if you do not like them. Set these aside to cool. Mash them up well with a masher.

2. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a pan. Add 1 teaspoon ginger paste, 1 to 2 chopped green chilies and 1 sprig curry leaves. North Indian bread pakora is made without mustard but you do find them in other regions. If you like you may add ¼ teaspoon mustard seeds here.

3. Saute them all until aromatic. Turn off the stove.

4. Add 1/8 teaspoon hing, ½ teaspoon red chili powder, ¼ teaspoon turmeric and ½ teaspoon garam masala. Mix well.

5. Add the mashed potatoes, sprinkle half teaspoon salt and mix well. You can also add coriander leaves & squeeze in some lemon juice. Taste test and add more salt if needed.

Make Bread Pakora

6. Place the bread slices on a board and then spread the potato masala. You can also spread this green chutney first and then spread the spiced potatoes.

7. Cover with another slice of bread. You can also spread green chutney on the both the slices.

8. Press the bread slices well to hold the stuffing properly. Cut them diagonally.

9. Similarly prepare all the stuffed bread. Set these aside.

Fry Bread Pakora

10. Begin to heat the oil in a deep pan. I used about a cup of oil for frying. You can shallow fry or deep fry. To a mixing bowl, add the below ingredients:

• ¾ cup besan
• ½ teaspoon red chili powder
• ¾ to ½ teaspoon ajwain ( carom seeds)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 to 3 tablespoons rice flour or cornstarch
• ¼ teaspoon turmeric

11. Mix all the ingredients well. Then pour water just as needed to make a thick batter.

12. The consistency must be similar to the chilli bajji batter.

Frying

13. Check if the oil is hot first. To check drop a small portion of the batter in the oil. It has to rise slowing without browning a lot. This is the right temperature. When the oil is almost ready, keep it to medium flame and proceed further.

14. You will have to gently lift the stuffed bread and dip in batter. Make sure it is coated on the sides as well. Hold towards the 2 edges and lift them from the batter. Gently swipe the excess batter.

15. Drop in the hot oil. Do not disturb for few minutes. If you use a large pan then you can fry 2 to 3 in one batch.

16. On a medium high flame, fry until one side turns golden. Then turn it to the other side and fry until both the sides turn crisp and golden. Remove them to a colander.

17. To fry the next batch of bread pakoras, ensure the oil is hot but not extremely hot. We want the oil to be moderate hot. Serve bread pakora hot with Green chutney or sauce.

Chutney for bread pakora

1 cup coriander leaves
½ cup pudina / mint leaves
1 tbsp fried or roasted gram / dalia
½ tsp jeera/ cumin
Salt as needed
2 to 3 hot green chilies
few drops of lemon juice
¼ inch ginger
1 to 2 small to medium garlic cloves
Lemon juice as needed

How to make
1. Blend all the ingredients together with 2 tbsps water. Add lemon juice and mix. Ready to serve.

Ingredients & substitutes

Bread: You can use any bread of your choice except for soft milk bread. Since the bread is coated with batter and fried the bread pakoras will not absorb oil even with fresh bread.

If you want to fry these on a griddle or bake then use dense slices of bread that do not have large pores. Bread with larger pores will soak up the batter and won’t cook well with these methods.

Potatoes: The street style bread pakoras have a filling made with boiled potatoes. On occasions I also add some mixed veggies like peas, carrots and even some paneer.

Cheese: My kids love some mozzarella cheese in the filling. You can add tiny cubes of the cheese. Ensure you use them at room temperature so they melt when the pakoras are fried.

Spices: Garam masala, turmeric and red chilli powder are the spices used for the potato filling. For the batter, carom seeds (ajwain) are used similar to the other pakora recipes. You can adjust all of these spices to suit your taste.

Gram flour is the key ingredient used to make any pakoras. Choose good quality fine or coarse besan. Using coarse besan gives an extra crunch to the deep fried bread pakoras.

Cornstarch or rice flour is used to give a crisp texture to your bread fritters. If you do not have both then you may simply skip it.

Amchur or lemon juice: The street style bread pakoras have amchur (dried mango powder) added to the filling. If you do not have it you can squeeze some lemon juice or simply skip them.