Gajar Ka Halwa Recipe

Reading Time: 11 minutes

Gajar Ka Halwa also known as Carrot Halwa is one of the most popular Indian desserts and is a delight during the winter months. Gajar Ka Halwa is specifically prepared during special occasions such as marriages, parties and festivals. A properly cooked Gajar Ka Halwa takes sometime to cook but the dish is worth the wait. The best part of cooking this dessert is that it requires intermittent attention from your side so you can do other things while it cooks slowly.

Gajar Ka Halwa (Carrot Halwa)

In India, during winter months you can find Gajar Ka Halwa readily available in market shops. Since it is a popular seasonal dessert you can also find it in restaurants and hotels menu under “special section”. Since it is a premium dessert the price is quite high as compared to other sweets and desserts.

The high cost is due to the fact that it is a seasonal dish, requires large quantity of milk, dry fruits and the dish is cooked slowly. But no matter how shops and restaurants would like to price it if you cook this amazing dessert at home it is quite cheap. This is one of those dishes which is quite economic if prepared at home in comparison to buying it from shop. Also, if you prepare this dish at home you can add your favourite extras to enhance the flavour at no-premium cost.

We recommend you to try this at home as we are sure you will fall in love with this dish just like many others out there.

Ingredients to make Gajar Ka Halwa

While the main ingredients of Gajar Ka Halwa is obviously Carrots, Sugar and Clarified Butter, dry fruits and other ingredients mentioned here basically enhances the flavour.

Clarified Butter

Clarified Butter is one of the important ingredients for this dish. It is also known as Ghee in Hindi and is a well known ingredient for cooking. If you are in India we recommend using Amul Ghee for great taste. Now-a-days, in most countries you can easily find Clarified butter though it is slightly different from Pure Ghee. This is because most food companies add a small percentage of vegetable oil to make it fluent and spreadable. If you are living outside India and cannot find Clarified butter you can add butter (preferably unsalted) though the taste may be slightly different (in a good way).

Carrots

Carrots are the main ingredient for this dish. There are few variety of Carrots available in market and usually the Red Carrots available in India are more tasty than Orange variety. Also the Carrots should be fresh so you can grate them easily.

Preparation for Gajar Ka Halwa (Carrot Halwa)

To make Gajar Ka Halwa first you need to pour whole milk in a clean utensil and switch on the flame to high to boil the milk.

To make halwa you should use a utensil with thick base. The reason for using a utensil with thick base is to ensure halwa does not stick to it. If the dish gets burnt it will ruin your experience and you would certainly not like to do so after spending so much time in kitchen.

While you are doing preparation for the dish keep an eye on the milk and once it starts boiling lower down the flame.

Gajar Ka Halwa is a simple recipe but requires lot of time to cook and intermittent attention. The best way to save time is to perform these preparation steps while you keep milk for boiling. The key preparation step for this dish is to finely grate carrots using grater.

Using a grater finely grate carrots and keep them in a separate utensil. As you wait for the milk to boil it is good to utilise your time to finely slice/chop Cashews, Almond and Pistachios into small pieces. If you are planning to use raisins you can also keep them soaked in water for sometime.

How to make Gajar Ka Halwa (Carrot Halwa)

To make Gajar ka Halwa, once the milk starts boiling it is time to add grated Carrots to boiled milk. After adding carrots give it a good stir to mix it well.

Put the flame on medium or low and let the carrots cooks slowly in milk. As the dish cooks slowly it lets milk and carrot flavours to blend properly. It will take around 45 – 50 mins for the milk to evaporate gradually to a level that you can move on to next steps. So, in the meanwhile you can utilise your time to do some other work such as cooking other dishes for main course while you wait for the halwa to cook.

Every now and then ~ usually 7 – 10 mins you should stir the halwa. This will ensure that Gajar Ka Halwa does not stick to the base of utensil and get burnt. Don’t push too hard if you are not able to stir halwa in exactly 10 mins or so as the time is indicative. All we want to achieve is that the halwa does not stick to the base of the pan and ruin our dish. So till the time we are able to do so, we should be fine with how often you plan to stir the halwa.

While cooking halwa you will see thin layer of milk cream crust forming on the sides of the utensil. When it does, use a spatula to gently scrub it off and add it to the halwa at the same time. Let it cook and repeat this as and when enough crust is formed on the sides of the utensil. Adding this crust will help make halwa thicker.

Now, once the milk reduces to 1/4th and the halwa becomes thicker it is time to add Sugar to it. After adding Sugar stir it well with a spatula and cook it for another 5 mins.

After cooking for 5 more mins it is time to add some Clarified butter to it. Add Clarified butter to the halwa and give it a good stir to mix it well. Now, let it cook for another 10 – 15 mins. You will see some Clarified butter floating on top, so you can occasionally stir it in between. Based on the quantity of halwa you should be generous in adding Clarified butter.

If you add less amount of Clarified butter aka Ghee Gajar Ka Halwa might not taste like a dessert but more like boiled carrots.

To make Gajar Ka Halwa many people add Mawa/Khoya while making the dish. Adding Mawa makes halwa more thick and granular. This is an optional ingredient and may give slightly different texture and taste to the dish. One of the benefit that Mawa serves is to reduce your cook time by 10 – 15 mins. Also, if you are planning to add Mawa you may want to reduce the quantity of milk.

There are no major benefits of using Mawa and hence we do not recommend using it. Instead we suggest to use more quantity of milk as it helps blend the carrot and milk flavours as the dish is cooked slowly.

However, if you still want to use Mawa then now is the time to add it to the dish. Before adding Mawa, you must first grate it using grater and then add it to the halwa so it mixes properly.

Since we did not add Mawa hence we used good quantity of milk to make the dish. As already mentioned, in our personal opinion you should use good quantity of milk to get best flavour for this dish.

Now it is time to add some dry fruits. Add sliced Cashews, Almonds, Raisin, Pistachio and Cardamom powder to Gajar Ka Halwa and stir it well.

This will ensure nuts mix properly. Let the halwa cook for another few mins. Once there is very less milk left in the pan your dessert is ready. Don’t let all the milk evaporate else the halwa will be very dry and will not taste good.

By now you should be able to see some milk and clarified butter in the halwa which is the indicator that your dessert is ready.

Your Gajar Ka Halwa is now ready so turn off the flame.

Sweet! It is time to add some garnish and serve it hot. For garnishing add some crushed pistachios on top. Your colourful and awesome dessert is ready to rock n roll.

Chef Recommendation for Gajar Ka Halwa

• You can use skimmed milk to reduce calories especially if you are weight conscious
• If you are Diabetic and still want to enjoy this dish you can use sweetener in place of Sugar however you may want to still take it in small quantity
• If you are allergic to nuts you can either remove them completely or only use raisin 
• We did not use Mawa/Khoya in our recipe as it is an optional ingredient. If you use good quantity of milk, Mawa is optional.
• We used fine granular Sugar which is easy to mix. You should ensure Sugar mixes well based on which type of Sugar is available to you.
• Ensure you use fresh sweet Carrots to cook the dish.
• The colour of this dish depends on the colour of Carrot used to cook the dish. We had Orange Carrots available and used it make the dessert. Usually in Indian sub-continent you get Red Carrots.
• You can easily store halwa for 1 week in refrigerator.
• This is a winter dessert as you will have access to good sweet carrots during the season.

Users Ask

Discover More

And that is not all folks! Shall we take this opportunity to invite you to discover more tasty and yummy recipes in our food wonderland.

• Check more such desserts in our Dessert section.
• Why not try few more Sweet and desserts this Summer. Check these desserts –
  • Shahi Tukda
  • Rice Kheer
  • Suji Ka Halwa
  • Banana Kheer
  • Gulab Jamun
  • Kesar Rabri
  • Sweet Rice