Beat the Heat: The Best Light Indian Street Foods for a 44°C Summer

Traditionally served in containers made from yesterday’s newspapers—or as Calcutta lore has it, from the exam paper you wrote last week, which found its way to the newspaper collector. The best part about jhaal muri is that you can tweak it to your taste and choose the spice level and the vegetables that go in. It’s filling, delicious, and light on the pocket.

If jhaal muri is not your thing, you could always try Bombay’s answer—bhel puri. Also made with puffed rice, but with the addition of bhujia and diced onions, bhel puri is a little heartier and definitely less healthy with a generous dose of a sweet tamarind chutney. I personally love a good bhel puri, but it’s best eaten as soon as it’s made because the chutney makes everything soggy.

Vada pav is India’s answer to a burger. (Express Archive)

Another favourite is papdi chaat, also called sev puri. Even Planet India in Brighton has mastered it. A layer of crisply fried puris, devoid of oil, is topped with chopped potatoes, onions, and chillies and then drizzled with a sweet-and-sour tamarind chutney, cold yoghurt whipped till it’s runny, and a spicy coriander-mint chutney. A sprinkle of black salt, chaat masala, and red chilli powder completes the dish. A bit messier than jhaal muri or bhel puri, you use the fried papdis to pick up the topping, with each papdi a mouthful.

Bombay’s other favourite is the vada pav, which I personally felt was an abomination. But it is a hearty way to fill your stomach in a jiffy, and it does have its own fan club. Street vendors will be sitting with piles of big alu bondas—balls of spiced mashed potato—which are deep-fried. They will slice open a bun or pao, keeping one side attached so your bonda and its filling don’t fall out. The bun is then slathered with a red chilli paste and some green chutney, the bonda is stuffed in it and smashed down slightly, and topped with a fried chilli. India’s answer to a burger. But we’ve kept it vegetarian.

Another great little snack on the road that helps beat the heat is kakdi (long melon or Armenian cucumber) and kancha aam (raw mango). It’s impossible to travel through North India without noticing men pushing carts piled with kakdi. If you ask for some, they will either sell it to you whole or offer to cut it up into chunks, with a sprinkle of a salty spice powder. Raw mango is sold across Bengal in little thongas (containers made from newspapers), where the mango is sliced and sprinkled with some salt and red chilli powder. If you’re making it at home, I’d recommend you add a little turmeric powder to the mix and then place the marinated mango in the sun for a few days. The slightly sun-dried spiced mangoes are heavenly.

Sev Puri: A layer of crisply fried puris, devoid of oil, is topped with chopped potatoes, onions, and chillies and then drizzled with a sweet-and-sour tamarind chutney, cold yoghurt whipped, and a spicy coriander-mint chutney.  (Photo: Freepik)

How can I forget my favourite summer and winter snack, which you should only eat from a street vendor? The phuchka! This is paradise in a mouthful. Watch the phuchka-wallah mash potatoes with spices and chopped chilis, sometimes adding some boiled chickpeas, and a dash of tamarind water ladled from a big, steel urn. Then see him crack a hole in the fried atta or suji phuchka, fill it with the potato mix, dip it into the steel urn—it usually has big chunks of Gondhoraj lebu floating in it—fill it with the cool, spicy water, and hand it to you. Pop it into your mouth, crush it, and savour the explosion of flavours.

Another big favourite I miss in Delhi—you don’t get it anywhere outside the Bengali markets here—is the alur chop, peyaji, and other bhaajas. This is far from healthy eating, but it’s quick, tasty and filling. Mashed spiced potato is made into a flat patty/chop, dipped in chickpea flour batter, and deep-fried. So too are rounds of onions, sliced onions mixed with spices and chillies and dipped in runny chickpea batter, whole chillies, and even sliced brinjals.

In Bengal, and in Bengali markets outside, these “chops” are usually prepped in advance and fried once. When you ask for your mix, they are dunked into hot oil again and served straight from the frying pan, often with a sprinkling of rock salt. Then they are packed into a thonga and handed to you so you can relish the delicacies on the go, and kickstart your calorie count.

So if you’re trying to beat the heat, stay away from the rice and heavy meals. Just trot over to a local street-food vendor and take your pick. Apart from fried potatoes—included purely for taste and ease—this is the best option for freshly made, light food in the summer of 2026.

Since the Indian toffee is having an international moment, next week I’ll be writing on “toffee culture” in India.