Moong dal ladoo recipe | How to make moong dal laddu

Moong dal ladoo recipe – Ladoo or laddu are traditional Indian sweets made mostly using lentils or flour, ghee and sugar or jaggery.  These moong dal laddo are made of skinned split mung lentil called as mung or moong dal. These balls turn out to be very aromatic and taste great. These are called as pesara sunnundalu in my native language. Sunnundalu is a classic sweet from the state of Andhra pradesh made with urad dal, a generous amount of ghee and sugar or jaggery.

Any ladoos made of lentils or flour would require lot of ghee for binding, so does this moong dal ladoo recipe. If a generous amount of ghee doesn’t fit into your diet, then you may take a look at the second recipe I have shared towards the end of this post.

This moong dal laddu recipe is apt to make for festive occasions, celebrations or when you have guests home.

For more laddu recipes, you can check besan laddu, suji or rava laddu, almond / badam ladoo, crunchy peanut laddu.

Moong dal ladoo recipe

Preparation for moong dal ladoo recipe

1. I have used organic moong dal here. I prefer to wash my lentils before using, this is optional but suggested. I wash it a few times and drain them completely to a colander. Shake off the colander to remove excess water. Spread it on a clean cotton cloth, preferably white. Rub it with the cloth and leave it for 10 mins. You can also sun dry this. Dal need not be dry completely. This step is completely optional but highly recommended if making for kids.

2. Begin to roast the dal on a medium to low heat stirring often until the dal turns aromatic and golden. You can also roast the dal in 1 tbsp ghee.

3. Dal turns crunchy when it is roasted completely. Add the cardamom seeds or the entire pod.

4. Cool completely and add to a blender jar. Make a fine powder. We don’t sieve the flour since slight coarse texture gives crunch to the moong dal ladoo. Set this aside.

5. Add sugar to the same jar and powder finely.

6. Set this aside as well. Mix both the sugar and flour. You can also store this mixture in a air tight jar for few months. Use this when ever needed to make laddu.

How to make moong dal ladoo recipe

7. Heat ghee in a pan. Fry cashews until golden. You can add raisins if you like.

8. I had set side 2 tbsp ghee after frying the nuts. Switch off the stove.

9. Add the flour and sugar mix.

10. Mix very well and check if the mixture binds well. If doesn’t then add back the 2 tbsp of ghee set aside earlier.

11. Mix a few times until the ghee coats the flour well. You can add as much ghee as you like. But the measurements given in the recipe card work well for me.

12. When the mixture is still hot, begin to roll to balls. Take small portions and roll them.

13. This recipe makes about 12 to 15 ladoos.

Store moong dal ladoo in air tight jar and handle with clean hands. These stay good for about 2 weeks.

Method 2 – moong dal ladoo – Low fat version

This Moong dal ladoo recipe needs very little ghee to fry the dal and nuts, raisins. Dry coconut and sugar together help the flour to bind. But if you wish to have the best taste you can use extra ghee that also helps to bind better.

I had prepared these not during any festive season so I just prepared using minimum ghee. If you are preparing for any special occasion I suggest you follow the first method.

Using coconut is optional, you can skip it or you can use any other ground nuts like cashews or almonds. You can even mill the dal to flour and it stays good for several months that is how in most andhra homes it is done for preparing sunnandalu. You can instantly make the ladoos when needed.

Ingredients
1 cup moong dal / pesara pappu
3/4 cup grated dry coconut (copra/ endu kobbari)
1 cup sugar
2 to 3 green cardamoms
1 tsp. Raisins and nuts
1 1/2 tbsp. ghee

Method
1. Heat a heavy bottom pan with ½ tbsp. ghee and fry this dal on a high flame for 2 to 3 mins and then on a low flame till it turns crunchy. This needs a bit of patience if you are using washed dal. Off the heat.
2. Add coconut, cardamoms and mix well. The heat from the hot dal and pan is enough to bring out the aroma from coconut. Set this aside to cool completely.
3. Transfer this to a jar and powder to fine mix. Set this aside.
4. Add sugar to the jar and make a fine powder.
5. Heat a pan with rest of the ghee and fry raisins and nut.
6. Now transfer the powdered dal mix to the sugar jar.
7. Run the mixer till the mix becomes warm. At this stage the mix begins to look lumpy.
8. Immediately transfer the ghee fried nuts, raisins to the mix. Take small portions of this warm mix and make moong dal ladoo. If the mix cools up, you may not be able to make the balls. In that case, you will have to grind the powder again and warm up the mix or use more ghee.

You can find more moong dal recipes on the blog,
mung dal halwa
mung dal dosa
moong dal recipe