Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Sel Roti
A ring-shaped, lightly sweet fermented rice bread, crisp outside and soft within.
Nepali · medium · serves 6
prep 30 min · cook 20 min
~437 cal · 7g protein · 99g carbs · 1g fat · 1g fiber · 18g sugars · 0g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Sel roti is Nepal's traditional ring-shaped rice bread, a lightly sweet, rice-flour batter poured in a circle into hot oil and fried until crisp outside and soft within. Golden and delicate, it is deeply tied to festivals, especially Tihar and Dashain.
Making sel roti is a skill: the batter, sweetened and sometimes spiced with , must be the right consistency to form perfect rings in the oil. It is prepared in large batches during festivals and offered to guests and deities.
Eaten as a snack, breakfast, or festive treat across Nepal, sel roti is celebratory food.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, egg-, nut- 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 6
3 cups rice, soaked and ground to a batter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp
a pinch a pinch of salt
1 or 2 tbsp banana or (optional, for richness)
as needed oil for deep-frying
Instructions
1
Grind the soaked rice with a little water into a thick, smooth batter and rest it a few hours.
2
Beat in the sugar, cardamom, and salt.
3
Pour the batter in a circle into hot oil from a cup or bottle.
4
Fry, turning once, until golden and crisp on the outside.
5
Drain and serve warm with tea or yogurt.
Kathmandu Valley tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Kathmandu Valley. Bhaktapur makes juju dhau, king curd, by boiling buffalo milk with a little sugar and setting it in unglazed clay pots that pull moisture out as it thickens. Winter brings yomari, a pointed steamed dumpling of rice flour filled with molasses, eaten at the full moon that closes the rice harvest.
🗺️
Nepal. Nepal preserves greens by fermenting them. Gundruk is leaf mustard, radish or cauliflower leaves packed tight, left to sour, then dried, and it turns up as soup and as pickle through the months when nothing green is growing. Momos, by contrast, came from Tibet and are shared across the Himalaya rather than being Nepali alone.
🌍
Asia. Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, and its food spans the delicate seasonality of Japanese washoku, the chili-fired curries of India and Thailand, and the wheat-and-lamb traditions of Central Asia. Rice, noodles, soy, and fermentation recur across its regions, while ancient spice routes and religious traditions shaped distinct grammars of flavor. Whether from a street-cart wok or a monastery kitchen, eating is deeply communal and ritual-rich.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Nepal
Yomari (Newari Sweet Rice Dumpling)Fig-shaped steamed rice-flour dumpling filled with chaku (jaggery molasses), toasted sesame, and coconut, made for Yomari Punhi.
Dal Bhat TarkariThe Himalayan daily plate: tempered black lentils, rice, and a turmeric-spiced vegetable curry.
MomoSteamed dumplings of spiced minced filling served with a tangy tomato-sesame achar, Nepal's everyday bite.
Browse all Nepal recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
Make it a Nepal meal
TongbaDrink
Juju DhauDessert
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Themes
Frequently asked questions
What is Sel Roti?
A ring-shaped, lightly sweet fermented rice bread, crisp outside and soft within.
Where does Sel Roti come from?
Sel Roti is a Nepali dish from Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.
Can Sel Roti be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Sel Roti 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 Sel Roti 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 Sel Roti take to make?
About 50 minutes total (30 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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