Thandai Recipe | Step By Step | How To Make Instant Thandai

Delicious homemade thandai is always at the forefront of our annual festivities for Holi, the festival of colour, and with good reason. A delicious and cooling traditional drink,  instant thandai recipe is made with a mix of dried fruits, exotic spices, and chilled milk. Our thandai recipe, straight from the streets of Vrindavan, yields a rich beverage which is nourishing and energizing. You just need to follow our easy thandai recipe step by step to add a splash of colour and fun to your Holi celebrations.

How to make Thandai?

To make thandai, start with getting together the nourishing thandai ingredients. Besides full-cream or whole milk, you will need saffron, green cardamoms, rose petals, and fennel seeds (saunf), all of which lend their fragrance to thandai. The black peppercorns used in this easy thandai recipe add a nice punch to it, while the nuts and seeds –  almonds, cashew nuts, pistachios, poppy seeds, and melon seeds  – add richness and bring their health benefits. And finally, sugar rounds off and elevates this thandai recipe with its sweetness. Think of thandai as a nutritious flavour-packed Indian milkshake.

The detailed method of how to make instant thandai is written below in our recipe or you can also watch the short recipe video for step by step instructions.
 

A Nourishing elixir – Easy Thandai:

Besides its sublime taste, which makes you want more, each glass of homemade thandai packs in substantial health benefits. Almonds, along with being rich in Vitamin E, contribute healthy fats to the drink. Poppy seeds are rich in B vitamins, melon seeds in amino acids, and cashew nuts in proteins. Fennel seeds are an anti-flatulent and the rose petals aid in digestion. All of these thandai recipe ingredients are combined with milk, which is high in calcium and also said to have an antacid effect.

Beat The Heat with our Instant Thandai recipe:

Thandai is closely associated with the Indian festival of colour, Holi, during which it is drunk in prodigious quantities in the northern parts of the country, especially Uttar Pradesh (Vrindavan and Varanasi regions in particular), Rajasthan, and Delhi. Holi is a festival in which colours made of natural substances are smeared onto friends’ and relatives’ faces as an act of celebration and love. This is also the time when temperatures begin to soar and drinking cool thandai, soothes the body and pacifies the internal heat or pitta dosha, an Ayurvedic concept.

‘Thandai’ is derived from the word ‘Thanda’ which means cool, and serves as a cooling elixir and energizer. It is also served during the festival of Mahashivratri celebrated in honour of Lord Shiva.

Speed up your Thandai Making Process:

If you’ve wondered how to make Instant thandai, all you need to do is watch and follow our step-by-step thandai video. You can save some time by making the nut paste ahead and refrigerating it. Likewise, the spice powder can also be made ahead and stored in an air-tight container. Add only a little milk to blend the powders and you have a thandai syrup recipe. This step ensures no lumps are formed. Alternatively, you could skip adding milk to make a paste and make a powder of the dry ingredients for greater shelf life. Store the powder in a tight glass container, and add it to the milk along with the spice mix as required.

Varieties of Thandai:

Thandai is a versatile drink that can be adapted to your preferred flavours easily. The common thandai recipes are Bhang thandai made with the addition of Bhang or paste made from cannabis leaves, Rose Thandai with added flavour from rose water or syrup and an increased quantity of rose petals, Mango Thandai, which is prepared using mango pulp, Badam-Kesar Thandai with saffron and almonds just like our thandai recipe, and Pista Thandai with an increased quantity of pistachios for a rich flavour.

To Bhang Thandai or Not:

This milk-based drink is famously mixed with Bhang or Cannabis leaves during Holi and Mahashivratri.

Fun Trivia: Though it is illegal to cultivate cannabis, which is a narcotic drug, it grows wild in Himachal Pradesh and many other parts of India. Consumption of the resin and flowers of cannabis are illegal under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985, so only a paste made from its leaves is used in thandai recipes. The consumption of its seeds is also legal and the seeds are used in many traditional recipes.

How to serve Thandai:

You can serve homemade thandai in traditional metal glasses such as silver or steel (also known for their cooling properties), but not before you top it with some chopped or grated nuts, and fresh rose petals, which make an eye-pleasing garnish. Saffron threads look great atop of thandai too.

Thandai is usually served on the afternoon of Holi, before lunch and after the first round of the play of colours. Homemade thandai gives respite from the heat and infuses one with the energy to play some more. The second round of colours is usually followed by a chaat party, followed by a lunch or brunch of Pindi Chana and bhaturas, Tahiri or Biryani, and Dahi Vada.

Get info on our thandai recipe with details of how to make instant thandai syrup at home here. Take a look at easy thandai recipe step by step below for the best homemade thandai.

Or take a look at all our Drink Recipes including easy Mango Lassi right here!