Samosa Recipe | How to Make Crispy Punjabi Samosa at Home

A crispy, flaky Samosa stuffed with tasty spiced potatoes is hard to say no to. Use this trusted chef’s recipe to make the BEST potato Samosa Recipe at home. If you’ve ever wondered how those restaurants that serve real Punjabi food make the crispiest and flakiest samosas, you should try this recipe.

My step-by-step guide will show you how to make them just like they do on the street in India or in a halwai style. A crust that is very flaky and crunchy but not too greasy. The best samosas are not made in fancy restaurants, but on the streets of India and at cheap restaurants.

People eat them with Mint chutney, Cilantro chutney, or Tamarind chutney for a flavor explosion. A lot of the time, these are also put together to make a meal called Samosa Chaat, which has a chickpea curry (Chole), chutneys, and crispy sev on top. Chaat masala, coriander leaves and pomegranate arils are sprinkled on top to finish it off.
I also give you two quick recipes for making a little amount of chutneys in this post. You can find them following the photo instructions. These will be the hit of your Indian-themed dinner or tea party. Try them out for your next event.

About Samosa

A samosa is a fried pastry snack that usually has spicy potatoes within. People in India, the Middle East, and Asian countries really like them. Merchants brought them to India from the Middle East. Samosa is one of the most popular snacks in South Asian countries today.

You can get them with several kinds of vegetables, keema, only onions, or cheese/paneer. But the Classic potato form is the best, and these are the second most popular street food in India after Pakora.

You may get samosas at street stalls, parties, restaurants, and even cafes. They are especially important during Holi, the Indian festival of colors, and during Ramadan, when people consume them as snacks after sunset.

We normally don’t eat fried snacks in cafes and restaurants since they aren’t good for our health (the oil gets too hot). I learned how to make samosas a long time ago since my kids enjoy them. If you learn the techniques right, especially how to make the crust, it’s really easy to make them at home.

Expert Tips

A perfect samosa should be flaky and crispy, with few if any bubbles or blisters on it.

It is very important to get the right amount of flour to oil/ghee to achieve a flaky samosa top. If you don’t use enough oil, the crust will be hard, and if you use too much, it will break. So make sure to use the proper amount.

It is very important to mix the oil into the flour well, until it looks like breadcrumbs. This makes the crust of the samosa the flakiest.

Samosa dough needs to be a little stiff but still flexible, and not too soft like roti or naan dough. So only use water when you need to. If the dough is too wet, it will generate a lot of tiny air pockets in the crust, which will keep the samosas from getting crispy.
Rest and knead the dough. You don’t have to knead this dough when you make it. But it needs to rest. Knead it well for 3 to 4 minutes once it has rested. It shouldn’t get smooth; it should stay tight and rigid. So don’t work too hard here.

Make a medium-thick disc out of the dough. It shouldn’t be too thin or too thick. Look at the video to see how thick it is. When frying, thin layers will rip the samosas. If it’s too thick, the crust won’t cook well.

The most important tip for frying: To get the nicest flaky samosas, fried them in fairly hot oil on a low flame for a long time. Then you turn up the heat and cook them on medium heat until they are crisp. This method won’t work because the pastry has enough fats to not take up oil. This is the key to making real Indian samosas that you can find at the greatest samosa places.

You shouldn’t cook them in very hot oil or on a high flame. If the oil is too hot, it will make bubbles on the crust, and frying at a high temperature won’t cook the samosa dough from the inside. You should cook them on a low flame until the dough is fully cooked on the inside.

For more similar snacks, you may like to check

Falafel

Spring rolls

Bread rolls

Pakora

Sandwiches

How to make Samosa (Stepwise Photos)

Boiling Potatoes

1. Peel, cut in half and boil 500 grammes (3 to 4 medium) potatoes in a pot of water until they are soft enough to pierce with a fork. You may also pressure cook unpeeled and halved potatoes for 2 to 3 whistles on medium heat or in the instant pot for 5 minutes with 1 cup of water on a trivet. After they cool, peel them.

Tip: You may also cook them whole in a pressure cooker for the following times: 5 minutes for little potatoes, 7 minutes for medium potatoes, and 10 minutes for large potatoes.

2. Cool the potatoes and crumble them. Set aside.

Make Dough

1. To a mixing bowl add

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (organic maida)
  

  

• ¾ teaspoon ajwain (carom seeds)
  

  

• ¾ teaspoon salt
  

  

• ¼ cup oil or ghee (4 tablespoons)
  

  

2. Blend everything well. For three to four minutes, rub the flour between your hands to mix in the oil well. The flour should look like breadcrumbs after this stage.
   

   

   If you press down on a handful of this flour in your palm, it should keep its shape. It shouldn’t fall apart, which means the oil is fully mixed in. Look at the video.

3. Add 4 tablespoons of water and start to shape the dough into a ball, adding additional water as needed. I added a total of around 4+2 teaspoons of water.
4. The dough ought to be strong, hard, and not sticky. Put a lid on it and let it sit for 25 to 30 minutes.
   

   

Make Potato Stuffing

1. In a pan, heat 1 tablespoon of oil or ghee. Then add ¾ teaspoon of cumin seeds. When the seeds start to pop, add 1 tablespoon of minced ginger
2. and 1 to 2 chopped green chillies. For 30 to 60 seconds, sauté. Next, add a little hing. Optional: You may also add some chopped cashews and toast them until they turn golden.
3. Add the spice powders –

• ¾ teaspoon of Kashmiri red chilli powder (add more or less to taste)
• ½ teaspoon of salt (add more or less to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder
• ¾ to 1 teaspoon of garam masala
• ½ teaspoon of amchur powder (dry mango powder) or chaat masala, or to taste
• ½ teaspoon of fennel powder (optional, saunf powder)

After 30 seconds of sautéing, add the green peas. For 1 to 2 minutes, sauté. After that, add the potatoes.

4. Saute the whole potato masala for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the potatoes are fully mixed with the spice powders. Add ¼ cup of chopped coriander leaves. Try this and add more salt if you need to.
5. Let it cool down. Add lemon juice at this point if you haven’t used amchur or chaat masala yet.

Make Samosa

1. Knead the dough again for 3 to 4 minutes after 25 to 30 minutes. The dough needs to be stiff, not squishy. Cut the dough into five equal pieces.
2. Put oil on the counter or the rolling board. Put the ball down.
3. Roll it into an even layer that looks like an oval. It was 8.5 inches long and 6.5 inches wide. It can’t be too thick or too thin.
4. Cut it in half so that you have two pieces.
5. Because all-purpose flour is what it is, the roti shrinks back a little, so I like to roll it lightly again. If you think the edges are too thick, roll them a little.
6. Use your finger to put water on the straight edge.
7. To create a cone shape like the one in the photo, join the edges together. Make sure the borders stick well. To make sure it stays in place, stick the edge from within the cone too.Look at the video. If you’re having difficulties sticking, mix 2 tablespoons of flour with a little water to produce a paste. Put a little paste on the edges to hold them together.
8. Put potato masala in the cone. Use a little spoon to push down a little.
9. Put water on the edge.
10. Stick the edges together to make a good seal. Make a pleat on one of the sides, as shown in the picture. In the video, I show a different but comparable way to do it. Please watch it.
11. Move the pleat to the side and stick it up. Make sure that your samosa is well sealed. To seal the edges, pinch and press down hard on them.
12. This will make your samosa stand up perfectly. Put them on a tray and cover them so they don’t dry out. Make 5 or 6 samosas first, then fry them. While the first batch of samosas is frying, make the remainder of them. This will keep the samosas from drying out.

Fry Samosa

1. Put oil in a pan and heat it up for deep frying. The oil should be warm, but not too hot. When the oil is just starting to get hot, add a little piece of dough. The oil shouldn’t be bubbling or sizzling a lot, and the dough has to rise slowly. You should only see small bubbles. This is the proper amount of heat. (The dough shouldn’t rise right away and turn golden.)
2. Carefully slide as many samosas as you can into the oil.
3. I fry five at a time. Fry them on low heat for 10 to 12 minutes without moving them. Turn the flame up to medium when the crust is solid. Fry them until they are brown and crispy on the other side.

Helpful hint: When you add them to the hot oil, you should observe very small Bubbles slowly rising.

This means that the Oil is at the appropriate temperature. It shouldn’t make a Sizzling sound as other fried snacks do.

3. Don’t hurry. It will take them a long time to fry golden. Fry them only after they have turned brown and crisp. When the samosas are golden,
4. take them out of the Oil and set them on a wire rack or steel colander.To cool down the next batch, turn the heat all the way down and add them.

You can serve samosas with tomato sauce, sweet tamarind chutney, or mint chutney.

How to create chutney for instant tamarind Samosas

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons of tamarind paste (or 2 teaspoons of concentrate, or more if you need it)
• ½ cup of jaggery or Brown sugar
• ½ Teaspoon of ground cumin
• ¼ Teaspoon of Garam masala
• ¼ teaspoon of fennel Seeds
• 1/8 teaspoon of Kashmiri Red chilli powder
• ¼ teaspoon of Ginger powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of black salt (or Sea salt if you need it: your tamarind paste might Already contain salt in it)
• 1/3 of a cup of water

Instructions

• In a small saucepan, mix together cumin powder, garam masala, red chilli powder  and fennel.
• Put them in the toaster on low heat for 30 to 60 seconds, or until they smell good. Don’t burn.
• Add the tamarind paste, jaggery, and water. Stir well and let it simmer until it thickens a little, like a sauce.
• Add the ginger and black salt during the last minute of cooking. The tamarind chutney will be ready in around 8 to 10 minutes.
• Taste the food and add additional salt, tamarind, jaggery, or any other spice you think it needs

Note: There are many kinds of tamarind paste, so adjust the amount as needed. Tamarind concentrate and tamarind paste are not the same. Start with less of the concentrate because it is stronger, and then change it as needed.

Black salt has a unique taste. You can include that if you want. You don’t need to toast the spices at the beginning if you have toasted cumin powder and handmade garam masala.

Variations of Samosa

Paneer Samosa:

Stuff crumbled paneer with green peas and masala for a protein-rich snack.

Keema Samosa:

This is a popular Non-vegetarian variant that is full with seasoned ground pork.

Chinese Samosa:

A fusion twist with noodles, Cabbage and chilli sauce inside.

Sweet Samosa (Mewa Samosa):

It’s made from khoya, dried fruits and sugar, and it’s often given during celebrations like Diwali.

What to Serve with Samosa

Samosas taste best when served hot with:

• Sweet Tamarind chutney
• Green chutney (Mint-coriander chutney)
• A cup of Masala chai
• You can also serve them as chaat with sev, curd, onions and chutneys on top.

Faqs – 

Steps for baking Samosas?

• Yes, you can bake samosas. But the best samosas are fried. I have baked these at 340 to 360 F/170 to 180 C for 35 to 40 minutes after coating them with a lot of oil. The results were okay, but not as excellent as the fried ones.
• If you want to bake them, use frozen puff pastry sheets that you can buy at the store. Make a square out of each sheet. Use a round cutter to cut each sheet into four or five roundels. Then cut each one in half. Then, as the recipe says, utilise them.

Is it okay to use whole wheat flour or atta?

• Yes, you can. But I think all-purpose flour will give you the greatest results. Wheat flour samosas are dense and have a nutty taste. Using half wheat flour and half all-purpose flour will give you better results.

Final Thoughts

Making samosas at home might take a little while, But the crunchy texture, spicy filling and real flavour make it totally worth it. You can serve them as a snack in the evening, an appetiser at a party, or a treat during the holidays. They never let you down! Once you learn how to make them, you’ll see that homemade samosas taste better and fresher than any store-bought ones.
So the next time you want something crunchy and spicy, don’t go to the bakery. Instead, make your own Punjabi Samosa. They’re golden, flaky and taste great.

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