Kerala Food Guide: 20 Dishes You Must Try

Kerala food is one of the best reasons to visit the state. Meals are built around rice and coconut, cooked in coconut oil with curry leaves, mustard seeds and spices that grow in the hills, such as pepper and cardamom. The coast adds fish and seafood, the Malabar north adds biryani and snacks, and the many temple and festival traditions add the vegetarian feast called sadya.

These 20 dishes are a good starting list. Recipes vary from home to home and town to town, so the same name can taste different in Kochi and in Kozhikode.

What do people eat for breakfast in Kerala?

• 1. Appam: soft, lacy rice pancakes with a spongy centre
• 2. Vegetable or chicken stew: a mild coconut milk curry served with appam
• 3. Puttu: steamed cylinders of rice flour and coconut
• 4. Kadala curry: black chickpeas in a roasted coconut gravy, eaten with puttu
• 5. Idiyappam: steamed rice noodles, often with egg curry or stew

Breakfast is usually the mildest meal of the day, which makes it a gentle introduction for travellers new to South Indian food. Most hotels serve at least two of these dishes.

What is a Kerala sadya?

Sadya is a vegetarian feast served on a banana leaf, traditionally for Onam, weddings and other celebrations. It can include more than twenty items, served in a fixed order and eaten with the right hand. Many restaurants serve a smaller version at lunch, especially on Sundays and during Onam, which usually falls in late August or September. Check the date for your year.

• 6. Sambar: lentil and vegetable curry
• 7. Avial: mixed vegetables in coconut and yoghurt
• 8. Thoran: dry stir-fried vegetables with grated coconut
• 9. Olan: ash gourd and beans in coconut milk
• 10. Payasam: sweet pudding of rice, lentils or vermicelli

Which seafood dishes should you try?

The backwaters and coast supply much of Kerala's fish. Karimeen, or pearl spot, is a freshwater fish found around Vembanad Lake and is the most famous local catch. Houseboat cooks often prepare it, and many toddy shops near Alleppey and Kumarakom serve it with tapioca.

• 11. Karimeen pollichathu: pearl spot marinated in spices and baked in a banana leaf
• 12. Meen curry: fish curry soured with kudampuli (Malabar tamarind)
• 13. Chemmeen roast: prawns cooked dry with onion and pepper
• 14. Kallummakkaya: mussels, often fried, a Malabar coast speciality

What about meat dishes?

Kerala has a long tradition of meat cooking, shaped by its Christian and Muslim communities. Beef is widely eaten in Kerala, which surprises some visitors from other states. If you do not eat it, say so when ordering, as it may not be obvious from a dish's name.

• 15. Kerala beef fry: slow-cooked and fried with coconut slices and pepper
• 16. Malabar or Thalassery biryani: fragrant short-grain rice biryani from the north
• 17. Nadan chicken curry: home-style chicken in roasted coconut and spices

Which snacks and sweets are worth trying?

• 18. Pazham pori: ripe banana fritters, a teatime favourite
• 19. Kerala porotta: flaky layered flatbread, eaten with curries
• 20. Banana chips: thin slices fried in coconut oil, sold everywhere

Tea and filter coffee are part of daily life, and small tea shops are good places to try pazham pori fresh from the pan.

Is Kerala food spicy, and is it good for vegetarians?

Heat levels vary. Breakfast dishes, stews and sadya items are usually mild, while fish curries and roasts can be hot. Ask for less chilli and most kitchens will adjust. Vegetarians eat well in Kerala: the sadya is fully vegetarian, and almost every restaurant serves a vegetarian meals plate at lunch. For a strict vegetarian diet, mention it at your hotel and on the houseboat, as kitchens may share pans.

Can you learn to cook Kerala food?

Yes. Several homestays and spice farms in Kumily and Kumarakom run informal cooking sessions where you help prepare a few dishes and then eat them. Ask for one when you book, and check what is included.

A few eating customs are useful to know. Meals are traditionally eaten with the right hand, and banana leaves are folded towards you when you finish to show you enjoyed the food. Restaurants always provide cutlery on request. Lunch is the main meal for many families, and a meals plate at a local restaurant is often the best-value way to taste several dishes at once.

Toddy shops serve palm toddy alongside very spicy fish, tapioca and meat dishes. They are part of local culture, but conditions vary and some are male-dominated, so choose a family-friendly one recommended by your hotel or driver.

Drink bottled or filtered water, and enjoy fresh tender coconut water, sold at roadside stalls across the state.

If you have only a few days, aim for one sadya lunch, one appam and stew breakfast and one backwater fish meal. Those three cover the main styles of Kerala cooking: temple vegetarian, Christian home cooking and coastal seafood.

Our Kerala food and cooking trail links markets, spice farms and home kitchens across Kochi and the hills. Houseboat meals are explained in our Alleppey houseboat guide for couples, and you can add a lunch stop in Alleppey.