Nepali Recipes to Cook at Home

Nepali home cooking is built on a template, not a recipe book: dal, bhat, tarkari, achar — lentils, rice, a seasonal vegetable curry and a sharp pickle, on the table twice a day. Gravies are thin, soupy jhol rather than heavy cream sauces, heat is moderate, and the deepest flavours come from a fermented pantry — sour dried greens (gundruk), fermented bamboo shoots (tama) — plus the tongue-tingling Himalayan pepper timur and the sharp bite of mustard oil. If you are planning what to order while travelling, start with our guide to Nepali dishes to try; this page is the other half of the story — the recipes, for cooking Nepali food in your own kitchen.

The short answer

Learn the everyday dal first: it is the backbone of dal bhat and teaches the core Nepali technique of simmering then jhanne — pouring sizzling spiced ghee over the pot. Add a tomato achar and a vegetable curry and you have cooked a genuine Nepali meal. Everything below uses supermarket-plus-Asian-grocery ingredients, with substitutions at the end.

Everyday dal (musuro ko dal)

Ingredients: 1 cup split red lentils, 3 cups water, ½ tsp turmeric, salt, 2 tbsp ghee, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 3 garlic cloves (sliced), 1 dried red chilli, pinch of jimbu or asafoetida (optional).

1. Rinse the lentils until the water runs mostly clear.
2. Simmer with the water, turmeric and salt for 20–25 minutes, until completely soft, skimming any foam.
3. Whisk briefly so the dal is smooth but still pourable — Nepali dal is a thin soup, not a thick puree; add water if needed.
4. Make the tempering: heat the ghee in a small pan and fry the cumin, garlic, chilli and jimbu until the garlic is golden.
5. Pour the sizzling tempering over the dal, stir, and simmer 2 more minutes. Serve over rice.

Aloo tama (potato and bamboo shoot curry)

The definitive sour jhol, usually cooked with black-eyed peas (aloo tama bodi).

Ingredients: 2 tbsp mustard oil, 1 onion (sliced), 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste, ½ tsp turmeric, 1 tsp each ground cumin and coriander, 2 potatoes (chunks), 1 cup fermented bamboo shoots (rinsed), 1 tomato (chopped), 1 cup cooked black-eyed peas, 3 cups water, salt.

1. Heat the mustard oil until it just smokes, then lower the heat — this mellows its raw pungency.
2. Fry the onion until soft, then add the ginger-garlic paste and ground spices for 30 seconds.
3. Add potatoes and bamboo shoots; stir to coat for 2 minutes.
4. Add the tomato, water and salt; simmer 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
5. Stir in the black-eyed peas and simmer 5 more minutes. The finished curry should be brothy and pleasantly sour.

Chicken or vegetable momo

Ingredients: 300 g minced chicken (or finely chopped cabbage and paneer), 1 small onion and a handful of coriander (both minced), 1 tbsp each grated ginger and garlic, 2 tbsp oil, salt; round dumpling wrappers.

1. Mix the filling well — the oil keeps it juicy — and rest it 15 minutes.
2. Place a teaspoon of filling on each wrapper, moisten the edge and pleat closed.
3. Steam over boiling water for 10–12 minutes (8–9 for veg).
4. Serve with tomato achar (below) as the dipping sauce.

Folding technique, jhol variations and the dish's full backstory get their own deep dive in our momo guide.

Gundruk ko jhol (fermented greens soup)

Gundruk — sun-dried fermented mustard or radish greens — is Nepal's signature sour flavour; the full story is in our gundruk and sinki guide.

Ingredients: 1 cup dried gundruk, 2 tbsp oil, ½ tsp fenugreek seeds, 2 dried red chillies, 2 tomatoes (chopped), ½ tsp turmeric, 1 boiled potato (cubed, optional), 3 cups water, salt.

1. Soak the gundruk in warm water for 10 minutes, squeeze dry and chop.
2. Heat the oil and fry the fenugreek seeds until dark brown, then add the chillies.
3. Add tomatoes and turmeric; cook down to a soft mush.
4. Stir in the gundruk and fry 2 minutes, then add water, potato and salt.
5. Simmer 10–15 minutes and serve hot with rice — sour, smoky and warming.

Tomato achar (golbheda ko achar)

The condiment that appears at every meal — and the classic momo dip.

Ingredients: 4 tomatoes, 2 green chillies, 3 garlic cloves, ½ tsp timur (ground), 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds (optional), salt, chopped coriander.

1. Dry-roast the whole tomatoes, chillies and garlic in a pan (or under a grill) until blistered and soft.
2. Pull off the loose tomato skins.
3. Pound or blitz everything with the timur and salt to a coarse sauce.
4. Stir in the sesame and coriander, and rest 10 minutes before serving. Keeps 3–4 days in the fridge.

Sel roti (Nepali rice bread rings)

The crisp-edged festival bread of Dashain and Tihar — a fried ring somewhere between a doughnut and a crepe.

Ingredients: 2 cups fine rice flour, ⅔ cup sugar, 2 tbsp softened ghee or butter, ½ tsp ground cardamom, about 1 cup milk, oil for deep-frying.

1. Whisk everything into a smooth, thick but pourable batter and rest it at least 1 hour.
2. Heat oil in a wide pan to medium — around 170°C.
3. Pour a thin stream of batter into the oil in a circle to form a ring.
4. Fry until golden on both sides, flipping once, and drain on paper.
5. Eat warm with yoghurt or chiya. History, festival context and troubleshooting live in the sel roti guide.

Masala chiya (the pot of tea that goes with all of it)

No Nepali meal ends without tea. Boil strong black tea with milk, sugar, crushed ginger and cardamom, and strain into glasses — the full step-by-step recipe, ratios and variations are in our Nepali chiya guide, with the spice blend covered under masala chiya.

Cooking Nepali food abroad: pantry substitutions

• Timur → Sichuan peppercorn. Nearly identical citrus-numbing effect; use a little less, as Sichuan pepper is often stronger.
• Mustard oil → neutral oil + mustard seeds. If food-grade mustard oil is hard to find, temper ½ tsp brown mustard seeds in a neutral oil for a hint of the same sharpness.
• Gundruk has no true substitute — the sour fermented depth is unique. Brined Chinese sour mustard greens (suan cai) rinsed and dried in a low oven get you closest; otherwise buy dried gundruk from a Nepali or Indian grocery online.
• Tama (fermented bamboo shoots) → sour bamboo shoots from a Thai or Vietnamese grocery; rinse before using.
• Jimbu → chives or a pinch of asafoetida in the dal tempering.
• Ghee → unsalted butter, gently browned.

Master the dal, keep a jar of tomato achar going, and the rest of the repertoire — from Newari feast dishes to festival sweets — is a short step away. Cook it once and you will understand why Nepalis never tire of the same beautiful plate.