Street Style Plain Salna (Empty Parotta Chalna)

Plain Salna (Empty Parotta Chalna) is a South Indian street style curry made with onion and tomato as its base ingredients. This recipe is super easy to make at home and requires only pantry staples (vegan, gluten-free).

Here are some more South Indian curries: Vegetable Stew, Veg Kurma, Mor Kuzhambu, Ulli Theeyal, and Kadala Curry.

Jump to:

• About Salna
• Ingredients
• How To Make Plain Salna
• Pro Tips By Neha
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Serving Suggestions
• Storage Suggestions
• You Might Also Like
• Recipe Card

About Salna

Plain Salna (Empty Parotta Chalna, Empty Salna, Veg Salna) is a street-style thin gravy famous in the Tamil Nadu state of India.

If you go to Tamil Nadu, you will find street carts and roadside street food shops selling salna and hot parottas, and a huge crowd gathered around the carts relishing this humble combination.

Empty Salna is a tomato-onion-based gravy with a prominent flavor from fresh coconut. It comes together in under 30 minutes and uses pantry staples.

Salna is very similar to a Hyderabadi salan or a biryani gravy in its color and consistency, but its tastes are very different and unique.

Traditionally, it is served with flaky Malabar parotta, but I even enjoy this curry with appam, neer dosa, or ghee roast dosa.

This plain salna recipe is vegan and gluten-free and can be easily scaled up.

I also have a Chicken Salna Recipe, which is also very delicious. Do try it too!

Ingredients

To Make The Coconut Paste

Salna recipe uses a fresh coconut paste prepared with fresh coconut, fennel seeds (saunf), cinnamon, cloves (laung), green cardamoms, white poppy seeds, cashew nuts, and green chilies.

You can adjust the green chillies as per your taste.

Buy already grated fresh coconut from the freezer section of an Indian grocery store to save time.

For The Gravy

To make the gravy, you will need everyday ingredients such as vegetable oil, whole spices, fresh curry leaves, onions, green chilies, salt, ginger-garlic paste, tomatoes, spice powders, and cilantro (fresh coriander leaves).

You will need whole spices like bay leaves (tejpatta), cinnamon (dalchini), cloves (laung), black peppercorns (kali mirch), and star anise (chakr phool).

To enhance the flavor further, add some spice powders such as coriander powder, Kashmiri red chilli powder, turmeric powder, and garam masala powder.

How To Make Plain Salna

Make The Coconut Paste

Add

• ½ cup chopped or grated fresh coconut
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
• 2-3 cloves
• 2-3 whole green cardamom
• 1 teaspoon white poppy seeds
• 8-10 cashew nuts
• 1 green chili

to a blender.

Add ¼ cup of water and blend to make a fine paste.

Make The Curry

In A Pressure Cooker

Heat 3 tablespoon vegetable oil in a pressure cooker over medium-high heat.

Once the oil is hot, add

• 2 bay leaves
• 1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
• 2-3 cloves
• 2-3 black peppercorns
• 1-star anise

and let them crackle for 4-5 seconds.

Add 10-12 curry leaves, 1 cup of thinly sliced onions, ¼ teaspoon salt, and 1 green chili pepper (slit into half).

Fry until the onions are slightly browned (4-6 minutes), stirring frequently.

Now add 2 teaspoon ginger garlic paste and fry for 2 minutes.

Add ½ cup of sliced tomatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes. Stir frequently while cooking.

Add

• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• 2 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
• 2 teaspoon garam masala powder

and cook for another minute.

Now add the ground paste that we made earlier, along with 2 cups of water. Add 1 teaspoon salt and stir well.

Close the lid of the cooker and pressure cook for 2 whistles on medium-high heat.

Remove the cooker from heat, let the pressure release naturally, and then open the lid.

Check for salt and add more if needed.

Garnish with 2 tablespoon chopped cilantro and serve hot.

In An Instant Pot

To make salna in an instant pot, press SAUTE mode and follow the steps until the cooker’s lid is closed.

Now press CANCEL and then press PRESSURE COOK.

Set the timer to 4 minutes at high pressure.

Once the timer goes off, let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes. Release the remaining pressure manually and open the lid.

Pro Tips By Neha

You can add a few mutton and chicken pieces to the salna before pressure cooking. Then either serve the salna with them or remove them and use them in other recipes. They add flavor to empty salna.

If you are a vegetarian, be careful while eating salna in a restaurant. They mostly cook it with chicken or mutton pieces added to it, remove the non-veg and use them to make other dishes and serve the salna plain.

You can swap cashew nuts with peanuts or roasted gram.

I made this recipe in my 6-quart instant pot (or a 3-liter stovetop pressure cooker). If you want to scale it, use an 8-quart instant pot ( or a 5-liter pressure cooker).

To make this dish more inviting, temper it with 1 tablespoon oil and 1 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Serving Suggestions

Parotta Salna is a very popular combination. It is traditionally served with hot and flaky Malabar Parotta. You can also serve it with Tawa Paratha or Lachha Paratha.

It also goes well with rice recipes like Lemon Rice, Tamarind Rice, Jeera Rice, Ghee Rice, etc.

Plain Salna tastes great with Chapathi, Plain Dosa, Appam, Ghee Roast Dosa, Neer Dosa, Idiyappam, and Idli.

This salna gravy is also used to make Kothu Paratha, so if you have some leftover curry, you can also try that recipe.

Storage Suggestions

Empty Salna can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Reheat it in a pan over the stovetop or in a microwave.

You can also freeze it for a month. Thaw and reheat before serving.

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