The BEST Besan Ladoo Recipe! Easy to make and deliciously sweet! These ladoos are soft, creamy yet you can taste the granular feel from the besan. This is one of the most common and popular Indian sweets made during festivals like Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, Raksha Bandhan, etc.
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❤️Why I Love This Recipe
- You’ll need only 4 ingredients. Very few but the end result is divine.
- This is a beginner-friendly besan ladoo recipe. It very easy and pretty hard to mess up with the recipe.
- The texture is soft, melt-in-your-mouth kind.
- Perfect make-ahead dessert for special occasions or festivals. It stays good for up to a week at room temperature in an airtight container.
- While cooking (roasting besan), the whole house is filled with sweet roasted besan aroma.
- Kids will sure love this ladoo. You can pack into their snack-box or serve them as an after school snack.
Besan ladoo are made during the festival or special occasions. During the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, it can be offered to Lord Ganesha as a bhog/prasad. During Diwali, it can be served as a snack along with few savory snacks to the guests
🧾Ingredients
Here is the pic of the ingredients used in besan ladoo recipe. Only 4 ingredients but the outcome is super duper delicious.
Ingredient Notes
Besan (gram flour): Besan is ground up chana dal (split bengal gram) and very easily available in Indian grocery stores. There is similar flour called chickpea flour (garbanzo flour) and it more popular in American grocery stores. This chickpea flour is ground up white chickpeas (garbanzo beans).
- FYI, besan is very fine vs chickpea flour is little coarse. To make BEST besan ladoo, you must use besan (gram flour).
Ghee: It adds richness, plus act as a binding agent. Please do not reduce its amount for the sake of making it low calorie.
Powdered sugar: I am using confectioners’ sugar aka icing sugar. Traditionally, boora or tagar is used in making besan ladoo and it is not available in the USA. So powdered sugar is the best, closest substitute. NO, it is not regular sugar in powder form.
Different Stages In Besan Roasting Process:
The key to getting the perfect and good tasting ladoo is roasting the besan well. Yes, you need to roast the besan on low flame with stirring constantly. If it is not roasted properly, you will have the raw taste of besan. It is not a pleasant taste.
- First, you will add besan to the hot ghee. As you start, it will be lumpy and you need to make efforts to stir the besan meaning you will feel it heavy.
- As it gets roasted, it starts to loosen up. Ghee will starts to ooze out. Also, you will get a nutty aroma of the besan. It will not be lumpy any more, it is more like a ‘thick paste’. Continue roasting with stirring constantly.
- You will not feel heavy anymore while stirring. It will be more of the runny paste now. This is the right time, you know that besan is roasted nicely and perfectly.
- The pics of all the stages are shown in the step by step photos below.
🍳Step By Step Photo Instructions
1) Heat the ghee or clarified butter in a pan on LOW heat. Once hot add besan and mix.
2) Roast the besan on low flame with stirring continuously. In the beginning, it will be a little lumpy. Keep on stirring and cooking.
3) As it gets roasted, it starts to loosen up.
4) Continue cooking, it will not be lumpy anymore. You will feel little light while stirring.
5) And then it starts to change color, you will have a nutty aroma of cooked besan and will be paste-like and shiny – meaning ghee starts oozing out. It took me about 20 minutes.
6) Remove it to a plate. Let it cool to touch or let it get warm.
7) Once the mixture becomes warm, add powdered sugar and cardamom powder.
8) Start mixing with your fingertips. It will come together like a loose dough
9) Shape into the ladoo and place on the plate. As the mixture is loose and warm, ladoo will not hold its round shape and will become flat.
10) No worries. After some time it cools down (about 15 minutes later). Then again shape into the round ladoo. Now it will hold its round shape. But be sure, don’t wait too long to cool down. Otherwise, it will get firm. Garnish them with chopped nuts or charoli.
💭Expert Tips
LOW HEAT: It is important to roast the besan on low heat.
STIR CONSTANTLY: While roasting besan, you must keep stirring to avoid burning and uneven browning. It will take good 20 mins for the given amount, you’ll get good arm exercise but the end result is totally worth it.
You can double or triple the recipe. But keep in mind that as you increase the amount, the roasting time also increases. E.g. 1 cup of besan takes 20 minutes. 2 cups of besan take 30 minutes and so on.
Never add sugar into the hot besan mixture. Let the mixture becomes warm then add, mix.
📖Variations:
- Add a bit of semolina (sooji) and make rava besan ladoo.
- There is Gujarati style magas ladoo, it is made from coarse besan.
- Khoya is added into the ladoo mixture to make it more rich and heavy.
- Nuts powder (cashew nut powder and/or almond powder) is added into the mixture. It gives a nice nutty flavor.
Check Out Other Ladoo Recipes
- Boondi ladoo
- Kuler ladoo (made with millet flour)
- Rava laddu (with condensed milk)
- Coconut ladoo (with condensed milk)
PS Tried this recipe? Please leave a star rating in the recipe card below and/or a review in the comment section. I always appreciate your feedback! Plus, Subscribe to my newsletter and follow along on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook for all the latest updates.
📋 Recipe Card
Besan Ladoo
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup Ghee (clarified butter)
- 1 cup Besan (gram flour)
- ½ cup Powdered sugar (Confectioner’s sugar or icing sugar) (tagar or boora)
- ⅛ teaspoon Green cardamom seeds powder
Instructions
- Heat the ghee or clarified butter in a pan on LOW heat. Once hot add besan and mix.
- Roast the besan on low flame with stirring continuously. In the beginning, it will be a little lumpy. Keep on stirring and cooking.
- As it gets roasted, it starts to loosen up. Continue cooking, it will not be lumpy anymore. You will feel little light while stirring and then it starts to change color (golden), you will have a nutty aroma of cooked besan and will be paste-like and shiny – meaning ghee starts oozing out. It took me about 20 minutes.
- Remove it to a plate. Let it cool to touch or let it get warm.
- Once the mixture becomes warm, add powdered sugar and cardamom powder. Start mixing with your fingertips. It will come together like a loose dough
- Shape into the ladoo and place on the plate. As the mixture is loose and warm, ladoo will not hold its round shape and will become flat. No worries. After some time it cools down (about 15 minutes later). Then again shape into the round ladoo. Now it will hold its round shape. But be sure, don’t wait too long to cool down. Otherwise, it will get firm.
- Garnish them with chopped nuts or charoli.
Notes
- LOW HEAT: It is important to roast the besan on low heat.
- STIR CONSTANTLY: While roasting besan, you must keep stirring to avoid burning and uneven browning. It will take good 20 mins for given amount, you’ll get good arm exercise but the end result is totally worth it.
- You can double or triple the recipe. But keep in mind that as you increase the amount, the roasting time also increases. E.g. 1 cup of besan takes 20 minutes. 2 cups of besan take 30 minutes and so on.
- Never add sugar into hot besan mixture. Let the mixture becomes warm then add, mix.
Neeta Shenoy
Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe and more importantly emphasizing the need to stir for a good 20 minutes. The long arm workout made the difference and the end result was simply fantastic. Your detailed directions are definitely valuable. Thank you for making the time to teach and share.
Kanan Patel
Glad that recipe was helpful.