How To Make Crispy Dosa with Instant Dosa Recipe Mix

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Let us face it – if you are a South Indian living anywhere away from home, the word “dosa” simply means home and your mom’s crisp delicious dosa filling up the entire house with their beautiful aroma. However, living away from home, dosas can fade into a romantic little nostalgia that sounds like a distant reality because it feels almost superhuman to make one. Only moms can make dosas right? I mean, who’s got the time to grind urad dal, measure ingredients and work out the consistency that only South Indian moms can measure with their eyes? Instant Dosa Recipe to save the day!

Well, thanks to instant dosa recipe mixes available everywhere now, you can unlock the superpower and make your mom or your South Indian friend’s mom proud while making chef level instant amazing dosa with our step by step guide.

Read on Dosa Lovers!

The Deal With A Traditional Dosa Recipe

If you are not a South Indian or even Indian and reading this, you must be wondering, what’s the big deal? We are talking Indian pancakes or Indian crepes right? What’s so hard to master?

Well, according to the internet, apart from regular dosa, there are almost 150 kinds of dosas and if you ask South Indian grandmothers, they will add a hundred more that they experimented with. Traditional dosas are typically made of a dosa batter that consists of fermented urad dal (black peeled and split lentils) and rice. Some people also make fine rava, wheat dosa using wheat flour or instant oats dosa to bring variety to this simple breakfast recipe.

It does not stop there, letting the batter rest, batter consistency, the grinding process and the perfect temperature of the tawa (flat pan for cooking dosa) can easily overwhelm a new cook.

However, like everything else now available in packages, an instant dosa recipe can make your dosa dreams a tangible and edible reality just in minutes.

So, let us make crispy and delicious instant dosas with instant dosa recipe mix, step by step with step pictures.

Instant Dosa Recipe Ingredients

For an instant dosa recipe, you don’t really need many ingredients. Let us make a few tweaks here and there to make simple dosas and uttapam with a few optional toppings.

Box Mix for your Instant Dosa Recipe

This is obviously one of the key ingredients. You can choose from a range of already packaged dosa powders that are available at all Indian food stores. Their ingredients vary, ranging from simple urad dal and rice powders to vegan, oats, and healthier options as per your choice. Dosa box mixes are often used to make idlis as well.

Water

You obviously need water to make the batter with the boxed instant dosa mix.

Yogurt or Sour Curd

Now this is debatable, but sour curd or yogurt is also often a key requirement, even for box mixes. You can check the directions on your instant mix to check further. The more sour your yogurt, the better it is, as this lends the classic sour fermented taste of traditional dosa.

Oil or Ghee

You need some kind of fat to make your dosas on a skillet or a tawa. You can use a non-stick skillet but will still need to sprinkle some ghee or oil over the top to get that authetic crispiness. So choose your preferred oil or ghee for that.

Optional Ingredients

At this point, we do not want to complicate things for you, but if you really like uttapam or toppings on dosa you can keep your choice of ingredients for that. We prefer green chilies, coriander leaves, onions, ginger, curry leaves and fresh vegetables for that. But ideally, you make some sambar and coconut chutney to enjoy with your dosa!

Cooking instructions

Okay guys, it’s showtime – let us show those moms scrunching up their noses in disapproval that we can do better than them – or just decent enough for a good dosa.

Put your chef hat on and jump into the kitchen with me!

• Okay, first off you need to get your choice of instant dosa recipe mix and read the instructions at the back just in case it requires something specific to be done, if not just ignore it like your crush ignores you and move on to greater things – I mean our next step.

• Take 1 measure of the available dosa mix and pour it into a mixing bowl.

• Now add ½ measure of water according to your instant dosa recipe mix and pour it into your batter.

• Next, add ½ measure of sour curd to the batter according to the measurement of the dosa mix.

• Now mix it all up really well to combine the three simple ingredients.

• Although the mix already has fermented properties, but to achieve perfection and a pro level, before moving on to the next step, just rest your best aside for five minutes. 

• After your batter has rested, at this step you can add your optional ingredients as well like green chillies, coriander, onions or curry leaves and ginger to your mix to make uttapam but since we are making traditional crispy dosas so we will skip them for now.

Let’s Make Your First Dosa!

• The most important trick apart from the consistency of the batter is perhaps the temperature and surface of the tawa or skillet. As we move on to the next step, it is important to master the art of the perfect tawa for dosas. We will add a section of tawa tips for you to master this science. 

• For now, if you are using a non-stick tawa (skillet), there is no need for oil or fat, but if you are using a cast iron skillet or carbon steel skillet heat the pan to medium, add oil, and spread it with a paper towel being careful not to burn your hand. You want a thin layer of fat on an already seasoned skillet.

• Now pour a ladle of your batter on the tawa and spread it in a circular motion with the back of your ladle like making a spiral on the tawa. The thinner you spread it, the crispier your dosa gets.

• As its cooking, spinkle drops of oil or ghee over it to crisp it up.

• Cook on medium flame until the texture of the dosa is brown and crispy on one side and there is usually no need to flip it, just fold it and it is ready.

• Remember to make it golden brown and crisp not black or burned. 

Tawa (Skillet) Tricks

If you haven’t figured it out already, a tawa is an Indian style skillet. It does not have a lipped edge and is traditionally made of carbon steel. But you can use any pan that is suitable for making crêpes, as long as it is non-stick or seasoned carbon steel or cast iron. Anything else is going to create a sticky mess without any possibility of edible dosa. Dosa’s number one favorite thing to do is: stick to an unseasoned pan!

If you are not sure of the quality of your seasoning, you can season a cast iron or carbon steel skillet to make perfect dosas and to avoid them sticking. For that, heat your tawa/cast iron skillet on high and spread a tbsp of oil on it. Make sure to sue a low smoke point oil like flax seed oil, sesame oil, or extra virgin olive oil, so the oil can oxidize and form a non-stick layer. Once the oil starts smoking, wipe off that oil with a paper towel. Let the pan cool below the smoke point and then repeat this process. Three times is the charm for best results. Once this is done you can lower the flame to medium heat and spread oil to make your dosas.

Now your dosas will turn out perfect and crisp!

Time To Jazz Up Your Instant Dosa Recipe

If you want to jazz up your dosas or just to add the creative touch, the possibilities are endless even with ready mix dosa batter. You can make masala dosas out of them by topping up with potatoes and masalas. You can make uttapam by adding literally anything from green chilies to cumin seeds, curry leaves to beetroot or any vegetable that you like.

Some of my favorite uttapam combinations are listed below, you can always add your own midas touch.

• Onion tomato uttapam
• Carrot onions and green chili uttapam
• Green peas uttapam
• Masala uttapam
• Beetroot uttapam
• Cheese uttapam (very popular in kids)

Remember, never forget to satisfy your inner little experimental chef and try as many tweaks as you like.

Serving Tips

You can serve dosas for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or literally whenever you are in the mood. They taste best when eaten with traditional green chilies and coconut chutney, tomato chutney, potato masala, sambhar, dal fry, onion chutney, or even peanut chutney. This super crisp comfort food is not just heavenly and scrumptious but also a great bonding moment for you and your family or your friends to revive the taste of South India wherever you are. So, switch on a Tamil movie and enjoy your dosas thanks to instant dosa recipe mixes. 

Health Benefits

Dosas are not just great in taste but are also generally very good for health. They are an excellent source of protein and carbohydrates and keep you full for a long time while being easy on the stomach. If you are a person with gluten allergies, some dosa varieties can be a great replacement for roti or paratha to satisfy your carb cravings. 

So, if you are going to the Indian food store, grab your box of instant dosa mix? Good job – make mama proud and pat yourself on the shoulder!