Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Pav Bhaji
Mumbai’s beach-stall classic: a buttery mashed vegetable curry with toasted buns, lime, and raw onion.
Indian (Mumbai) · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 30 min
~320 cal · 6g protein · 44g carbs · 15g fat · 8g fiber · 10g sugars · 9g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Pav bhaji is a Mumbai street-food icon, a spiced mash of mixed vegetables cooked down on a giant flat griddle and served with soft, buttered dinner rolls (pav) for dipping. It was born in the 1850s as a quick, cheap meal for the city's textile-mill workers, turning assorted vegetables into a fast, filling dish.
The bhaji is a buttery, tomato-rich tangle of mashed potato, peas, cauliflower, and more, seasoned with the tangy, aromatic 'pav bhaji masala' and finished with a glistening knob of butter and a squeeze of lime. The pav, a legacy of Portuguese bread in India, is split, buttered, and toasted on the same griddle.
Assembled to order at Mumbai's Chowpatty beach stalls and street carts, it is topped with raw onion and cilantro and eaten straight off the griddle.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
3 potatoes, boiled
1 cup cauliflower, chopped
1 cup peas
1 cup carrots, chopped
3 tomatoes, chopped
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 onions, diced (plus extra raw, to serve)
2.5 tbsp pav bhaji masala
2 tbsp ginger and garlic paste
5 tbsp, the street stalls use more butter
8 pav (soft buns)
1 lime
a handful cilantro
Instructions
1
Boil the cauliflower, peas, and carrots until soft, then mash them roughly together with the boiled potatoes.
2
Fry the onions in half the butter until soft, add the ginger-garlic, then the tomatoes and pepper, and cook down 8 minutes.
3
Stir in the pav bhaji masala, then add the mashed vegetables and a cup of water.
4
Simmer and keep mashing on the heat for 10 minutes, to a rough, spoonable curry.
✎ Chef’s note
Keep mashing as it simmers, and do not be shy with the butter. That constant mashing is what gives pav bhaji its signature smooth-yet-rustic texture.
5
Split the pav rolls and toast them cut-side down on a buttered pan until golden.
6
Serve the bhaji with a pat of butter on top, raw onion, lime, and cilantro, with the pav alongside for scooping.
Mumbai street-griddle tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Maharashtra (Mumbai). Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, cooks fiery coastal Malvani seafood and the city's beloved street food, vada pav, pav bhaji, and bhel puri. Peanuts, coconut, and kokum define its varied table.
🗺️
India. A grain line runs across the country, rice through the south and east, wheat rotis through the north and west, and the cooking fat shifts with it: coconut oil and curry leaves in the south, mustard oil in the east, ghee and dairy-thickened gravies in the north. Chilli is a relative newcomer to all of them, carried in by Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century.
🌍
Asia. Fermentation is the thread that runs the whole way across: soy sauce and miso, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Southeast Asian fish sauces, the soured batter behind an idli. Chilli is the newcomer among them, arriving only after 1500 with Portuguese and Spanish traders, which makes the heat in Sichuan, Thai and Korean cooking far younger than the fermenting underneath it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
Storing it: Best assembled just before serving. Prep the components ahead and dress at the last moment so it stays crisp.
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Pav Bhaji?
Mumbai’s beach-stall classic: a buttery mashed vegetable curry with toasted buns, lime, and raw onion.
Where does Pav Bhaji come from?
Pav Bhaji is a Indian (Mumbai) dish from Maharashtra (Mumbai), India.
Can Pav Bhaji be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Pav Bhaji recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Pav Bhaji safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Pav Bhaji take to make?
About 50 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 30 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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