🍢 SNACK
Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters)
Crunchy chana dal fritters spiked with onion, green chilli, curry leaves and fennel, each topped with small whole prawns and fried until deep gold, served hot with onion, chilli and lime.
Sri Lankan · medium · serves 4
prep 30 min · cook 25 min · plus 6 h hands-off time
~459 cal · 31g protein · 49g carbs · 16g fat · 9g fiber · 10g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Isso means prawns in Sinhala, and wade (vadai) are fried lentil fritters. Put together, they are the snack of Galle Face Green, the seafront promenade in Colombo, where at sunset vendors fry them to order and pile them into paper with chopped onion, green chilli, a squeeze of lime and a spoon of chilli or sauce.
The base is the familiar parippu wade: split chickpeas (chana dal) soaked for hours and ground coarse, mixed with onion, green chilli, and spices and shaped into flat patties. The Sri Lankan touch is on top. Two or three small prawns, often left in their shells, are pressed into each patty before it goes into the oil, so they fry crisp and red on the surface.
Made at home they are best eaten straight from the pan, while the fritter is still crunchy outside and tender in the middle.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, dairy-, 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
- 250 g chana dal (split chickpeas)
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
- 1 medium red onion, finely chopped
- 2 to 3 green chillies, finely chopped
- 10 , chopped
- 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric (for the batter)
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp rice flour
- 300 g (about 40) small prawns, shell on
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder (for the prawns)
- 1/4 tsp ground turmeric (for the prawns)
- 1 tbsp lime juice (for the prawns)
- 1 l , for deep-frying
- 1/2 cup red onion and green chilli, finely chopped, to serve
- as needed lime wedges and chilli or sauce, to serve
Instructions
- 1Rinse the chana dal and soak it in plenty of cold water for at least 6 hours or overnight, until you can crush a lentil between your fingers. Drain very well.
- 2Grind the dal with the garlic and ginger to a coarse, thick paste, using no water if you can. Mix in the onion, green chillies, curry leaves, fennel, chilli flakes, turmeric, salt and rice flour to a stiff mixture that holds together.✎ Chef’s noteLeave some texture. A few half-crushed lentils are what make the fritter crunchy.
- 3Rinse and dry the prawns and toss them with the chilli powder, turmeric, a pinch of salt and the lime juice. Leave for 15 minutes.
- 4Heat the oil in a wok or deep pan to 170 to 180C (340 to 350F). With wet hands, shape golf-ball-sized pieces of the mixture into patties about 1 cm thick and 5 to 6 cm wide, and press two or three prawns firmly into the top of each.
- 5Fry two or three at a time, spooning hot oil over the tops, for 3 to 4 minutes per side until deep golden and the prawns are cooked through. Drain on paper towels.
- 6Serve hot, with chopped onion and green chilli, lime wedges and chilli or tamarind sauce.
Colombo street-food tradition (Galle Face Green).
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Western Province (Colombo). Colombo's Western Province beats to the clang of kottu blades chopping roti on hot steel. Sri Lankan cooking is fierce and coconut-rich: rice and curry in many small dishes, sambols of chili and coconut, hoppers at breakfast, and roasted curry powder.
🗺️
Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka grows the cinnamon, not the substitute. Cinnamomum verum is native to the island and its thin, brittle, many-layered quills are a different spice from the thick single-layer cassia sold under the same name elsewhere. Peeling it is a skilled trade, done by hand with a specialised knife.
🌍
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.
More from Sri Lanka
Parippu & Pol SambolCreamy coconut-milk red lentils with a fiery fresh coconut-chili relish, the twin pillars of a Lankan rice table.
Fish Ambul Thiyal (Sour Fish Curry)Sri Lanka’s dry sour fish curry: firm fish coated in a jet-black paste of goraka and black pepper and cooked down until every piece wears a tangy, peppery crust.
Kottu RotiChopped flatbread stir-fried with curry, vegetables, and egg on a clanging griddle, Colombo’s midnight anthem.
Browse all Sri Lanka recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Wok.
Storing it: Fried food is best eaten fresh while crisp. Re-crisp leftovers in a hot oven or air fryer; the microwave makes them soft.
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Cuisine
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Frequently asked questions
What is Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters)?
Crunchy chana dal fritters spiked with onion, green chilli, curry leaves and fennel, each topped with small whole prawns and fried until deep gold, served hot with onion, chilli and lime.
Where does Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters) come from?
Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters) is a Sri Lankan dish from Western Province (Colombo), Sri Lanka.
Can Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters) 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 still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), 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 Isso Wade (Sri Lankan Prawn and Lentil Fritters) take to make?
About 6 h 55 min in all: 30 minutes prep and 25 minutes cooking, plus 6 h of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 4.
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