Sundal Varieties for Navarathri Festival

Navarathri and Sundal goes hand in hand and the festival is incomplete without sundal. Every evening, after we light the lamps, any one kind of sundal is offered as neivedhiyam. There are days when I get bored of making sundal and I end up making some sweet for neivedhiyam. But since I have learned couple of sweet sundal recipes, I have religiously been making only sundals for offering.

Sundal has become a routine preparation at home these days because of its health benefits. The protein and fiber that we get from the beans is really a important part of diet especially for vegetarians. I necessarily do not make sundals with coconut and use different vegetables instead along with the beans to make it flavorful and healthier.

The sundal recipes I have below are traditional ones that we make for Navarathri in our house. I will be updating a couple more as I make this year for the festival.

This is one of the most commonly made sundal. This sundal yields a lot and I typically make it on the days when I have lot of people coming home for thaamboolam / vethalai paaku.

This is my personal favorite and I used to love it ever since I was a child. This one is on my list almost every year.

This is a relatively newer sundal that I have been making for the past couple of years. We have really started to like the flavor of karamani and I use it  lot at home for making different recipes.

This is probably the easiest and quickest sundals that I make. This requires no prior soaking of the dal and is a life saver on days when I forget to soak the beans. I also make this sundal for dinner as a side, on days when I have no vegetables in the house.

This is again one of the sundals that I learned recently. The only sweet sundal that my mother used to make was the karamani sundal. This is pretty similar to that except for we use the whole moong to make this.

If I am making a sweet sundal out of moong, I have to make the savory version as well. On a normal day, I would have sprouted the whole moong, but for Navarathri, I just use it as is.

Happy Navarathri!