Lauki Kheer - Bottle Gourd Milk Pudding

Deliciously decadent kheer laced with cardamom and saffron and the goodness of lauki / bottle gourd, that you can feel a little less guilty of indulging in more than one serving.

Prep 5 minutes mins

Cook 15 minutes mins

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Deliciously decadent kheer laced with cardamom and saffron and the goodness of lauki / bottle gourd, that you can feel a little less guilty of indulging in more than one serving.

Jump to Recipe

There are so many of these recipes that I had even heard of, let alone tried and tasted them before I got into the world of food blogging. I come across something that is new to me and I go asking for a recipe, be it neighbors, friends or look up in my collection of cookbooks or even the internet.

This lauki kheer is one such recipe. Lauki or bottle gourd is not a vegetable that is quite commonly used in Southern India, which is where I grew up and spent most of my life. But I have started to love this vegetable and Lauki Chana Dal is a dal curry that I make quite often after having once tasted it and loved it at a friends house for dinner.

Lauki kheer is yet another story. I was quite intrigued when I heard that a dessert could be made with this vegetable. But knowing the taste and texture of this vegetable, I could see how this would work. Lauki Kheer is also called Doodhi Kheer or Ghiya Ki Kheer - those are just other names for bottle gourd.

I tried to read up about this recipe, and as always there are several versions to making this recipe. A popular one was cooking the grated lauki in water and then adding to the milk mix and another one I saw was to just add it. I didn’t what to go with the first method as it did not call out to me. The second one felt like I was taking too much of a chance just putting a raw vegetable into a dessert.

So I decided to fry the grated lauki in ghee till it became soft and I then proceeded to make the kheer out of it. Frying in ghee is something we do quite a bit in a lot of traditional Kerala style payasams like the kadala pradhaman or ethapazham payasam. So I thought that should work for this too. And it did!

I used evaporated milk for this recipe as a shortcut to get that gorgeous deep color that is slightly pink, that you get from reducing the milk down. It worked really well and I hope you will love it as well.

📖 Recipe

Lauki Kheer

Manju

Deliciously decadent kheer laced with cardamom and saffron and the goodness of lauki / bottle gourd, that you can feel a little less guilty of indulging in more than one serving.

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine Indian

Servings 4 people

Calories 275 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• ½ cup grated lauki / bottle gourd
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 2 tablespoon ghee
• ⅓-1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• ½ teaspoon saffron
• 4-5 pistachios shelled and crushed
• 1 tablespoon sliced almonds

Don't forget to check out Step-by-step instructions with photos in the body of the post above

Instructions

 

• Heat the ghee in a heavy bottomed pan and add the grated lauki to it. Saute for about 5 minutes till the lauki starts to soften up a little.
• Now add the evaporated milk and let it come to a boil. Simmer for a couple of minutes.
• Add the sugar to this and mix well to let it dissolve. Add the cardamom and saffron and simmer for a few more minutes.
• Remove from heat and garnish with the pistachios and sliced almonds. Serve warm or cold.

Nutrition

Calories: 275kcalCarbohydrates: 27gProtein: 6gFat: 15gSaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 44mgSodium: 94mgPotassium: 321mgSugar: 25gVitamin A: 210IUVitamin C: 1.7mgCalcium: 244mgIron: 0.5mg

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!