Thandai Recipe | Best Homemade Thandai

Thandai recipe: Thandai is an Indian traditional, festive drink made with milk, nuts and exotic spices. A quick recipe that tastes heavenly. It is served at times of the festival Maha Shivratri and Holi. This beverage is very popular especially in NorthWestern states of India.

What is Thandai

Thandai comes from the Hindi word 'Thanda'. Which basically means something that is cold. Hence it is a cold, refreshing drink for summer. It is such a versatile recipe. Which can be tweaked in many different ways to suit someone's needs and preferences.

There are many other variants of this drink. A few common among those are Kesar thandai, Badam thandai, Rose thandai, Mango thandai, and Bhang thandai. However, the basics of any thandai recipe are always the same.

Benefits of Thandai Recipe

Thandai is the best cooling and refreshing drink that rehydrates the body instantly. The medley of ingredients used in this super drink has some amount of benefits for our body. Few among those are:

Boosts immunity
Works as an instant energy booster
Aids digestion
Cools down the body

How to make Thandai Recipe

Milk is the base ingredient in this. In addition to that almonds, cashews, pistachio, poppy seeds, fennel seeds, black peppercorns, rose petals, saffron, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, sugar are also used. The making process starts with soaking the nuts and seeds in water for a few hours. Then followed by grinding into a smooth paste. Finally, the process complete by mixing with the boiled milk.

This tastes best when served chilled.

Use sugar as per your requirement. To make it more healthy you can use low-fat milk and you can also use honey as an alternative to sugar.

For a vegan version just go for any plant-based milk as a base.

Generally, I make this whenever I crave for something milk-based drink. I love it so much. I can have it any day at any time.

It tastes best when freshly made at home. Though readymade thandai powder is easily available in the market. But it is always advisable to make it fresh to get the best benefits out of it and also you have more control over the ingredients. Here is how to make homemade thandai at home.