These Chana Kathi Roll have spiced chickpeas wrapped in a flaky paratha with mint cilantro chutney and topped with pickled onions. It’s so flavorful, quick and easy and makes a great vegetarian meal.

Whenever I go to New York, I make sure to get my fix of kathi rolls at Kati Roll Company. I love their aloo rolls and chana rolls and we always end up eating one each. I definitely miss those rolls here and so when the cravings for those chana rolls struck, I made these easy chana kathi rolls.

I took a lot of shortcuts because I was going for an easy route here but in spite of that these turned out so good. The filling is flavorful without use of onions or tomatoes and it’s all enclosed in a flaky and soft paratha. The homemade mint chutney and pickled onions take these rolls to the next level.

If you are looking for a quick vegetarian meal, then it can’t get easier than this. The chana filling for these rolls gets done in only 5 minutes!

This Chana Kathi Roll

• makes an easy 30 minute meal (if you have the chutney and pickled onions ready).
• is so flavorful without using onions or tomatoes.
• makes a filling lunch or dinner.
• great meal for busy days!
• can be also packed for lunch.

Parts of The Recipe

There are four basic parts to this recipe- the filling, paratha, chutney and pickled onions!

Chana Masala: the spices chickpea filling is made with canned chickpeas and a whole bunch of spices. Sure, you can use raw chickpeas and then pressure cook them and then use in the recipe. But since I was going the easy way, I used canned chickpeas.

There’s no onion, no tomato here, the chana masala gets it flavor solely from the ghee and spices. Trust me, it is so good and makes the perfect filling for these rolls. So, do not replace the ghee here.

Frozen Parathas: for these chana kathi roll, I used Kawan brand frozen parathas. The plain ones are very soft and flaky and work perfectly for kathi rolls. You can however, use any paratha or wrap that you like. It’s totally up to you. I do have a recipe for homemade paratha/wrap that’s used for kathi rolls and I will share it someday but for now we are using ready to eat parathas for this recipe.

Mint Chutney: you can’t have a kathi roll without chutney, can you? For these, you can either use cilantro chutney or mint chutney, whatever you prefer. I have used mint chutney here.

Pickled Onions: usually kathi rolls are topped with raw red onions but here I have used pickled onions and I think they add such a nice tang and flavor to the rolls. They are super easy to make at home!

Quick Pickled Onions

I make these pickled onions all the time, they are so easy and great on everything. You can definitely use a knife, but I like using my mandoline slicer to slice the onion into 1/8 inch thickness. Once that’s done, you take a pan put it on stove-top and add the following:

• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons sugar (or 1 if you prefer less sweet)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Give it all a stir and heat on medium heat until the sugar dissolves. You don’t need to boil it. Add the sliced onions to a mason jar and then pour the prepared vinegar mixture over it. Stir and refrigerate for a few hours. It might look like that the vinegar is less to soak up all the onions but eventually the onions shrink in size and it’s all submerged below the vinegar mixture.

I sometimes invert the mason jar while it’s in the fridge so that the onions on top also submerge in the vinegar. And that’s about it. It’s ready to use in so many recipes and they are so good in these chana kathi roll.

Advance Prep

These rolls are very easy to assemble once you have everything made and ready to go. So, if you plan to serve these for lunch the next day, make the chutney and pickled onions in advance. If you have these ready, you can make and serve these rolls in less then 30 minutes. In fact, you can even make the chana masala in advance and keep it refrigerated.

Heat up the parathas and assemble the rolls when it’s time to serve these. I would also heat up my chana filling if it was refrigerated overnight since it tends to become little hard.

Step by Step Instructions

1- To a small bowl add the following:

• 2 teaspoons chole masala
• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder (adjust to taste)
• 1/8 teaspoon garam masala.

2- Now, add 3 tablespoons water to the bowl and stir to make a paste with the spices. We add water so that the spices don’t burn when we add them to the pan. Set this aside.

3- To a pan on medium heat, add 1 tablespoon ghee. Let it melt and then add 1/4 teaspoon ajwain. Stir few seconds and then add ginger juliennes (from 1/2-inch ginger) and 1 sliced green chili. Cook for 30 seconds, we don’t want to brown the ginger.

4- Add the prepared spice paste into the pan and stir. Cook the spices for 30 to 45 seconds.

5- Then add in the chickpeas and salt (to taste). Stir until all chickpeas are well coated with the spices. Cook for 1 minute. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons additional water at this point.

6- Add cilantro and cook the chickpeas for 2 more minutes, stirring often and crushing some of the chickpeas with the back of your spatula. The filling is now done. Set this aside.

7- Heat up a tawa/skillet on medium heat. Once hot, place the frozen paratha on it. I have used plain Kawan paratha here.

8- Cook the paratha until it’s cooked and golden brown, following the instructions on the package. Cook all the parathas similarly.

9- To assemble the kathi rolls, take one paratha and spread mint chutney all over it.

10- Then add the prepared chana masala in the center of the paratha.

11- Top with some pickled onions and chopped cilantro.

12- Fold over from both sides to close the roll. You may use a toothpick to hold it in the center or wrap the roll in aluminum foil. Make all the rolls in the same way. Enjoy with more chutney on the side.

Using Shortcuts

There’s so harm in using even more shortcuts than the ones I have used in this recipe to make things even more easier!

Use store bought chutney: you can find mint or cilantro chutney at all Indian grocery stores. Pick a brand that you like and use that.

Use store-bought pickled onions: again, this is something that you can easily pick up at store. Or you can even skip the pickled onions and use raw onions if you like.

Ready to eat tortilla/wraps: if you don’t want to cook the frozen parathas, simply get ready to eat wraps/tortillas available at grocery stores and use those to make these kathi rolls.

Using Raw Chickpeas

You can make these rolls using raw chickpeas. Soak chickpeas overnight and then pressure cook then using Instant Pot (around 15 mins high pressure) or using stove-top pressure cooker and then use in the recipe. You would need around 1& 1/2 to 1 & 3/4 cup boiled chickpeas here.

Make sure they don’t get too mushy while pressure cooking, we want them a little firm for this recipe.

Tips & Notes

• Do not replace ghee in this recipe. The flavor of this chana filling depends a lot on ghee. We are not using any onions or tomatoes here so ghee adds a lot of flavor.
• To make this vegan, use vegan butter in place of ghee. I would not suggest using a flavorless oil here.
• If you want to make these chana kathi roll gluten-free, you can use gluten-free wraps and follow rest of the recipe as is.
• Leftover chana filling can be used in sandwiches or eaten with rice and dal or roti.
• Chole masala is a blend of spices that you can find at any Indian grocery store. I use a local brand which I get from India but you can use any brand that’s available at grocery stores like Everest etc.

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