They are said to protect human body from cancer and heart disease, reduce cholesterol and helps to manage type 2 diabetes and also assist in weight loss. To get the optimum health benefits from flaxseeds they must be ground or powdered and then used.
For many years I was so curious & excited to include this super food in our diet & this flaxseed podi just happened on a random day and we absolutely loved the idea. You won’t even know there is flaxseed in it. So if you have a fussy family, this is the best way to get them eat some flaxseeds happily.
There are many ways to include flaxseeds in our diet. Here are some of the ideas you may like which are tried and tested by me. Here goes my personal opinion.
Flaxseeds are best to be used in dry preparations as they tend to turn sticky when added to any kind of foods with moisture. But there are a lot of people who use them for smoothies & bakes which didn’t go well for our taste buds.
How to use flaxseeds in your diet
- Add the powdered flaxseeds to chapathi flour or mutli grain flour to make multi grain roti. You can also add to any of your paratha variety.
- Make a spice powder like this vepudu karam. Just sprinkle over your every day stir fry curries or sabzi.
- Add it to your chaas, Indian buttermilk or lassi, a common and easy way consumed in many households.
- This chutney podi is the most loved way of consuming flaxseed at my home, we eat it in our breakfast meal as a side. It goes well idli, upma, khichdi, dalia, vermicelli, poha etc. Actually you can also eat it as is, on its own without anything. To make this flaxseeds chutney powder, I use peanuts, roasted gram (roasted chana dal), red chilies, cumin and garlic. Many do not like the sticky taste and feel of the flax seeds, but they can hardly be felt in this podi, since peanuts dominate the taste of flaxseeds. This can be served even to kids, along with idli, dosa or upma. If you do not prepare Indian breakfasts, then you can serve this with rice and few drops of ghee or just sprinkle over your vegetable stir fry dishes. Please use our friend google search to find the daily recommended intake of flaxseeds. Too much of flaxseeds is again not good.
How to make flax seeds chutney podi
- Dry roast flaxseeds lightly for 4 to 5 mins on a medium flame. Set aside to a plate to cool. I had these roasted a day before I made the podi, so don’t have a picture.
- In the same pan, dry roast peanuts on a medium flame till golden & aromatic. Take care not to burn them. If you do not want to use peanuts, you can simply substitute the same amount of fried gram (roasted gram).
- Off the stove, to the hot pan, add fried gram (roasted gram), cumin and garlic, mix for them to heat up. Set aside to cool. Transfer everything to a wide plate to cool.
- Add oil to the same pan. On a low flame, fry broken red chilies till crispy. You can also dry roast them if you prefer no oil podi. I used a bit of oil, so the pungent and hot chilli flavor doesn’t spread in my kitchen.
- Once cool, add red chilies to a blender jar and powder it.
- Add peanuts, cumin, garlic, roasted gram and then the flax seeds along with salt
- Powder them. Do not blend till the podi turns hot, it will begin to ooze out oil and turns lumpy. If your mixer is not very powerful, then powder the flax seeds first to fine powder and then add the peanuts and the rest of the ingredients. Ensure the flaxseeds are finely ground and keep the peanuts slightly coarse if you prefer. Store flaxseeds podi in an air tight glass jar and refrigerate. Flaxseeds powder keeps best if refrigerated. If you are looking for more Indian spice powders, checkpeanut podispice powder for vegetable stir fry Rasam powderbiryani masala powderpunjabi garam masala powdersimple garam masala powderpav bhaji masala powder
Recipe card
