3 Kids-Friendly Recipes To Use Methi As a Part Of Your Meal Plan!

Methi or Fenugreek is a green leafy vegetable that is extremely versatile and comes with various health benefits for Infants, Toddlers, Lactating Mothers, Teenagers, and all age groups. Please also note that overconsumption of it can be harmful. You can start giving methi to your child once your baby turns 1 year old. Hence I have come up with 3 kid-friendly recipes to use Methi as a part of your meal plan.

Methi can be consumed as methi seeds, green methi leaves, or as Kasuri Methi which is basically dried methi leaves.

Methi provides the following health benefits:

1. Helps digestion in infants, toddlers, and for all age groups
2. Helps in milk production in lactating mothers
3. Helps control diabetes.

I have come up with 3 recipes of methi which is healthy and delicious:

1. Methi Fritters/Pakoras
2. Methi Paratha/Thepla
3. Methi Namak Para

Methi Fritters/Pakora:

How to make Methi Pakora:

Ingredients:

250gms fresh Methi leaves

1 cup chickpea flour/Besan

2 tbsp Rice Flour

1 tsp red chili powder (you can reduce or omit if your kids don’t like spicy)

1 tsp Carom seeds/Ajwain(must to avoid any gas in kids)

1 green chili (again this can be reduced or omitted from the recipe)

A pinch asafoetida/Hing

1 tsp Sugar

Oil for frying

Method:

Clean and wash the Methi leaves 2 to 3 times to remove all dirt and sand from the Methi leaves.

Finely chop the Methi leaves and add Sugar to reduce the bitterness from the leaves

Take a mixing bowl. Add the chickpea flour, rice flour, Asafoetida, Ajwain, Red chili powder, chopped green chili, and salt and mix well.

Add the chopped Methi leaves and add water little by little to make a thick paste-like for the pakora. The batter should be of medium consistency, should not be too thick or too thin.

Heat oil in wok/Kadai, once the oil is hot enough, drop 5 to 6 pakoras in the oil.

Keep the flame in low to medium and fry till golden brown.

Take out the pakoras and place them on a paper towel to drain excess oil.

Enjoy hot Pakoras with green chutney or with Tomato ketchup.

Methi Paratha/Thepla:

How to make Methi Thepla:

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flout

½ cup Chickpea flour

1 tspn Ajwain/Carom seeds

¾ cup fresh finely chopped Methi leaves

2 tsp oil

½ tsp Red chili powder

½ tsp Turmeric powder

½ tsp cumin powder/Jeera powder

¼ tsp Hing/ asafoetida

Salt to taste

Water as required to knead the dough

1 tsp Green chilli paste(optional)

Method:

In a mixing bowl, add wheat flour, chickpea flour, red chili powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder, hing, carom seeds, oil, green chili paste, and salt to taste.

Add methi leaves at this point.

Use water little by little and knead the mixture to form a soft dough.

Heat the Tava/Skillet.

Make small size balls and make small rotis and place the rotis on the Tava once the Tava is hot.

Cook the paratha/thepla on medium heat. Drizzle some drops of ghee on the paratha. The paratha should be golden brown.

Serve it with raita/pickle.

Methi Namak Pare:

How to make Methi Namak Pare:

Ingredients:

1 cup Wheat Flour

1 cup All-purpose Flour

1 tsp Semolina

½ cup Methi leaves finely chopped

1 ½ tsp Red chili powder

½ tsp Hing/ asafoetida

¼ cup curd

2 tsp Sesame Seeds

1 Tbs Ghee

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method:

In a mixing bowl, add wheat flour, all-purpose flour, semolina, methi leaves, red chili powder, hing, curd, sesame seeds, ghee, and salt and form a soft dough.

Cover and leave the dough for 10 minutes to rest

Make 4 to 5 doughs and make rotis of it.

Prick the rotis a fork so that they don’t swell like puri while frying

With a knife or cutter, cut diamond shapes of the entire roti

Heat oil in a wok/Kadai, once the oil is medium hot, drop the diamonds one by one and fry them on medium heat.

The Namak Para’s should be golden in color.

Remove from the oil and place it on a paper towel to drain excess oil.

Cool the Namak Para’s before storing them in an airtight container.

You can also bake them at 190 C for 12-15 minutes till the edges start to get brown. I recommend flipping them once after 6-7 minutes. Also if you don’t have fresh methi, you can use Kasuri methi.

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