Cook Street Style Masala Pav at Home | A recipe filled with Veggies, Spices and lots of Cheese
Masala Pav is one of the unique recipe of Mumbai street foods which is very simple to prepare and makes your day worth if you love spicy flavoured and cheesy foods. Prepare this spicy and yummy Mumbai style Masala Pav at home and you are going to love the recipe because of its richness in spices and veggies.
As this is a homemade Masala Pav, it's hygienic, flavour-rich and will satisfy your taste buds for sure. It is as tasty as nice it looks.
My memories of Masala Pav
I try a lot of recipes at home and that's how FoodQuench recipe blogs and YouTube channel started. However, I do definitely like to eat outside too as that's the best way of knowing different recipes and tasting varieties of foods, some places and restaurants are not that bad after all (I know some of those which serve really good and hygienic food).
Like some of you I wasn't always aware of this Masala Pav recipe, I remember someone telling me about it and that how tasty this recipe is. By listening about this delicious recipe, we went outside to specifically eat Masala Pav and found a really good place in Pune where we had very nice Cheese Masala Pav. Though this is a Mumbai style Masala Pav which I am going to share in this blog, but I had it in Pune for the first time. From then on, I always try to cook this recipe once in a while.
I try to share these recipes in such a way that you can also cook such food recipes at home easily and make everyone around you happy with homemade and delicious food.
About Masala Pav
A true Mumbai street food recipe, is kind of a sibling to Pav Bhaji. But as you would probably know, Masala Pav and Pav Bhaji aren't exactly the same. Both these recipes have similarities in the ingredients but they differ slightly in the way these are cooked, taste and in looks.
Masala stuffing in this recipe is spicy mixture prepared using onion, capsicum and tomatoes with chilli powder, pav bhaji masala and some other ingredients. Some people may even add potatoes to prepare masala pav recipe. And all this spicy masala mixture is applied on Pav slices and roasted with butter. While Pav Bhaji's Bhaji is a medium thick gravy prepared using onion, capsicum, tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower with chilli powder, pav bhaji masala and other ingredients served with lightly roasted Pav slices and some sides. Some may even choose to add green peas, carrots too to the Bhaji.
Masala Pav, Pav Bhaji and Dabeli - all of these have some similarities and are really tasty recipes. But it's quite difficult to tell which one of these is my favorite. I love all of them and I am sure you would too if you try these recipes. All these 3 Mumbai styled street foods can be served with or without cheese. When prepared and served using cheese, their versions become Cheese Masala Pav, Cheese Pav Bhaji and Cheese Dabeli - so simple.
Masala Pav is an amazing recipe. Though it seems similar to Pav Bhaji but it's not exactly the same.
I served buttermilk with this Cheese Masala Pav recipe along with some unique combination (cucumber slices, spicy and tangy onion). I will share recipe for my version of masala buttermilk soon. So stay connected and visit FoodQuench for regular recipe updates.
Try this yummy Mumbai street food recipe at home if you have never tried it before and leave your feedback which encourages me to share more such recipes.
Now without any further delay let's quickly go through this Mumbai street food recipe.
You may also watch this YouTube Video for complete steps on how to make Masala Pav at home.
If you are interested to know more Mumbai styled street foods, check a mouth watering Dabeli Recipe.
To check many more such tasty food recipes in video formats, you can also visit FoodQuench’s YouTube Channel.
- 3 tablespoons Butter
- 1 tablespoon Ginger (grated)
- 1 tablespoon Garlic (grated)
- 2 cups Onion (finely chopped)
- 2 cups Green Capsicum (finely chopped)
- 3 cups Tomato (finely chopped)
- 1 tablespoon Red Chilli Powder
- 2 tablespoons Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder
- 2 tablespoons Pav Bhaji Masala
- 1 tablespoon Salt
- 1/2 cup Coriander
- 16 Pav Slices
- 8 tablespoons Butter (as required)
- 10 Processed Cheese Cubes (or as required)
Heat a kadhai and add 2 tbsp butter to it. Then add grated ginger, grated garlic to butter and saute for a minute on a medium flame.
Then add finely chopped onions to it and saute for 4 to 5 minutes until they become soft.
Once onions are soft, add capsicum and mix.
Cover with lid and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, mix once and again cook for 3 minutes.
Now move the veggies to the sides and make some place in the center. Add 1 tbsp butter in the center now.
Later add
- chilli powder
- kashmiri red chilli powder
- and pav bhaji masala
in the center and mix all the spices in butter for nice flavour.
Then mix all spices in the veggies.
Later add finely chopped tomatoes, salt and mix well. Cover with lid and cook for 5 minutes.
You can add tomato puree too, if tomatoes aren't very juicy.
After 5 minutes, add some water to it.
Tomatoes aren't juicy enough to make the veggies soft, so I am adding water to it (add water only if needed).
Now cover and cook the bhaji masala mix for 15 to 20 minutes
Check a few times and mix.
After 20 minutes, mash the bhaji masala well using a masher.
Turn off the flame and at last, add finely chopped coriander.
You can also use this Bhaji Masala to mix in rice or you can apply on bread slices for sandwiches.
Mix well and Masala Pav Bhaji or Masala Bhaji whatever you wanna call it, is ready to be applied on Pav slices.
You can make Masala completely dry and in that case Masala Pav won't be soft. However, I would suggest you to keep this bhaji masala quite moist. So when you apply this masala on Pav it becomes moist and soft too.
Next step is to prepare Masala Pav. For that -
- Heat a tawa and add some butter to the pan.
- Cut pav slices from the center and place on the tawa and rotate pav slice. So that butter will be applied on all over the slices.
Approx. 1 tbsp butter required to apply on both sides of 2 pav slices.
Apply butter on other side too and flip over bread/pav slices.
Now place a spoonful of bhaji or veggie masala on pav slices and cook for a minute. Don't overcook pav slices because it will burn otherwise.
Turn the sides. You can see it's light crisp and not roasted much, and we want Masala Pav to be soft.
Apply masala on other side too and flip them.
Masala pav is ready but as we want to make it even tastier, let's grate some cheese on bhaji masala applied pav slices.
I have used 1 cheese cube in stuffing for 2 pav slices. You may use less or more as you prefer.
Place a slice on top of the other slice and apply some veggie masala on the top (or you may even skip this step if you don't want to apply it on top).
Bhaji masala and cheese stuffed Masala Pav is ready, take out for serving. Similarly prepare other masala pav.
While serving this cheese Masala Pav, accompany it with some cucumber slices, spicy and tangy onion and tomato ketchup too. Also grate some cheese on top of the slice.