Crispy Vegetable Samosas with a bright, spicy cilantro mint dipping sauce is just what your Friday night needs. The dough, filling, and chutney can be made ahead of time. They are also easy to freeze. Make samosas now, and save some for later!

Photography Credit: Prerna Singh

If you grew up in India, then you’re bound have a samosa memory. Samosas remind me of my school days. We’d enter the canteen (lunchroom) during lunch break, and the aroma of piping hot samosas would fill the whole space.

Lip smacking spicy filling wrapped in a crispy shell, deep fried to golden perfection and served right out of the fryer, along with a sweet and spicy chutney. Nothing can beat that experience!

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What Are Samosas?

Samosas are a widely popular street food in India. It is believed samosas were brought to India by Middle Eastern traders.

Typically, samosas are filled with a spicy potato filling, then deep fried. These triangular dumplings have blurred the lines between breakfast, lunch, and evening snacks for Indian food lovers.

As a bi-product of its popularity, many other fillings are also used to make samosas today. Minced meat (keema) or chicken, dry lentil-based fillings, and sweet fillings are a few examples. But spiced potato samosa is still the most popular variety.

Can Samosas Be Vegan?

The most common variety of samosas sold on the streets of India, which is the recipe I used here, is vegan if cooking oil is used in the pastry dough and to deep fry the samosas.

But depending on what kind of a filling you use, how the pastry is made, and what is used to fry it, a samosa can be vegan, vegetarian, or non-vegetarian.

HOW DO YOU MAKE SAMOSAS?

To make a samosa, the filling is stuffed into a pocket of pastry, which is made mainly with all-purpose flour, salt, and lots of ghee, butter, or oil to make the shell flaky. The filled dough is then shaped into a triangle and deep fried in oil until the shell is nice and golden.

If you’re not a huge fan of deep-fried food, you can make baked samosas too. The process of shaping and filling the dumplings will still be the same, but the ghee or butter ratio to flour will have to be adjusted.

You could also skip making the dough altogether and wrap samosas for baking in phyllo, which is also popular in India.

Tip: Serve Samosas with Green Chutney

The most common way to serve a samosa is with a dip called chutney. Green chutney is something that gives samosa a whole new dimension, and they pair so well together.

This chutney is mainly comprised of two common Indian herbs—cilantro and mint. These herbs are blended with fresh chili, ginger, garlic, lemon juice, and a few simple spices. It’s versatile and happens to be one of the most common dips in Indian food.

It’s like hot on top of hot, with a smack of citrus from lemon juice. The herbal flavor from chutney compliments the spices in the samosa—definitely flavors you will never forget and would come back for more!

In an Indian kitchen, chutney is typically made fresh and served immediately, but this can also be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator for up to three days. If you have leftover chutney, serve it alongside naan or rice, or spread it on sandwiches.

HOW TO SERVE SAMOSAS

To eat a samosa, you either dip it in chutney and eat it as a finger food or you break steaming hot samosas in half, set them on a platter, drizzle chutney on top and serve it. Either way, it’s delicious!

TIPS TO STORE AND FREEZE SAMOSAS

Typically, samosas are fried, served hot, and eaten as soon as possible.

You can prepare both the dough and the filling ahead of time, then fill, assemble, and fry when you’re ready to eat them.

For the filling: A savory filling of meat or potatoes can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two days, and in the freezer for up to four weeks.

A savory filling of meat or potatoes can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two days, and in the freezer for up to four weeks. For the dough: Make the dough, then wrap it in a plastic wrap, and keep it in the refrigerator for two to three days.

Make the dough, then wrap it in a plastic wrap, and keep it in the refrigerator for two to three days. To freeze whole samosas: Fill and shape the samosas. Placed the unbaked samosas on a baking sheet in a single layer, and cover them with plastic wrap to keep air from sneaking in. Pop them in the refrigerator for up to a day or in a freezer for up to one month.

To thaw frozen samosas, transfer them to the refrigerator the night before you want to fry them.

Once fried, you can keep them in a warm oven set to around 170°F for about one hour, or at room temperature for the same amount of time.

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