Recipes·Vegan·Vegetarian·Gluten-Free·Iron Deficiency·Women'S Health

Tamarind Rasam with Spinach and Toor Dal

Tamil Nadu, India · This is the everyday paruppu rasam of Tamil Nadu, tamarind and tomato with a coarse fresh powder of black pepper, cumin, and coriander and a little cooked toor dal for body, and it leans on the rasams in S. Meenakshi Ammal’s Cook and See (1951). I added spinach wilted in off the heat, kept the tomatoes generous for their vitamin C, and made the tadka in oil instead of ghee so the pot stays vegan.

A thin, peppery Tamil broth of tamarind, tomato, and a little toor dal, with a handful of spinach wilted in at the end so plant iron and vitamin C land in the same bowl.

Julia Prence, MS, RD, LDBy Julia Prence, MS, RD, LD
Prep10 min
Cook40 min
PlusMost of the prep happens while the dal simmers.
Serves4
EffortEasy
Cumin seeds and black peppercorns spilling across a wooden table
Photo: aj photography on Unsplash

Rasam is a broth you drink more than eat, and a Tamil meal isn’t finished until it arrives. The word means juice, or essence. It’s thin, sour from tamarind, hot from black pepper rather than chile, and it comes after the sambar, ladled over a small mound of rice. . On its own, in a steel cup, it’s what a lot of households make when someone has a cold.

This is paruppu rasam, the kind with a little toor dal mashed in to give the broth some body. The spinach is my addition. Dal and spinach carry plant iron, tomatoes carry vitamin C, and the two do better in the same bowl than on separate days. The Dietitian’s Note has the numbers. The pot doesn’t care; it just tastes like rasam.

Start to finish it’s about forty-five minutes, and the dal does most of that on its own. One practical note and one rule. Block tamarind, soaked and squeezed, gives a rounder sour than concentrate, and the seedless kind is less work. . Concentrate varies a lot brand to brand, so start with less and taste. As for the rule, every rasam cook agrees on it. Once the dal is in, don’t let the pot boil. Bring it to a froth at the rim and turn it off, because a hard boil dulls the pepper and the tamarind both.

Method

  1. 1

    Start the dal. Combine the rinsed dal, 2 cups of water, and the turmeric in a small pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, skim off the foam, then drop to a steady simmer with the lid ajar. Cook until a lentil mashes against the side of the pot with no resistance, 30 to 45 minutes, adding a splash of water whenever the surface looks dry; older dal takes longer, and a 30-minute soak while you gather everything else brings it closer to 20 minutes. A pressure cooker does this in about 10 minutes at pressure.

  2. 2

    Soak and squeeze the tamarind. Put the tamarind in a bowl, pour the 2 cups of hot water over it, and leave it for 10 minutes, until it’s soft enough to squash. Work it with your fingers until the water turns the color of strong tea and the pulp lets go of its fibers. Strain into a measuring cup, pressing on the solids, and discard what stays in the strainer. If you’re using concentrate, stir it into 2 cups of warm water and move on.

  3. 3

    Crush the spices. Pulse the peppercorns, cumin, coriander, and chile in a spice grinder, or crush them in a mortar, until they’re coarse like cracked pepper, with bits you can see, and nowhere near a powder.

    Black peppercorns in a white mortar with a wooden-handled pestle
    Black peppercorns in a white mortar with a wooden-handled pestlePhoto: Nancy Hughes on Unsplash
  4. 4

    Simmer the tamarind and tomatoes. In a pot of at least 3 quarts, combine the tamarind water, tomatoes, garlic, crushed spices, salt, and jaggery. Bring to a boil, then simmer over medium until the tomatoes slump and the sharp, raw smell of the tamarind rounds off, 8 to 10 minutes. Mash the tomatoes against the side of the pot as they soften.

  5. 5

    Mash the dal. When the dal is soft, whisk or mash it in its own pot until it’s a loose, even puree with no whole lentils left. Stir in 1 cup of water.

  6. 6

    Bring it to a froth, never a boil. Pour the dal into the tamarind pot and stir. Set the heat to medium and watch it. The surface goes cloudy, then a pale froth gathers at the rim and the middle starts to tremble. That’s the moment. Turn off the heat before it breaks into a boil. Taste for salt and sour, and add hot water a half cup at a time if it’s sharper than you’d like. It should be thin enough to drink from a cup.

  7. 7

    Wilt the spinach. With the heat off, stir in the spinach. It collapses into the hot broth in about a minute and turns a deep, glossy green. Put the lid on while you make the tadka.

  8. 8

    Make the tadka. Set a small skillet over medium heat and add the oil. When it shimmers, add the mustard seeds. Once they’re popping steadily, add the cumin seeds and the chile, then the curry leaves; they’ll sputter hard for a second or two and go glossy. Add the hing, swirl once, and pull the pan off the heat.

  9. 9

    Pour and serve. Tip the tadka over the rasam and put the lid on for a minute, so the oil perfumes the broth instead of the kitchen, then stir in the cilantro. Serve over a small scoop of rice, or ladle it into cups and drink it.

185kcalEnergy
8gProtein
6gFiber
6gFat
28gCarbohydrate

Estimated from USDA FoodData Central for the rasam alone, without rice.3478 Each bowl carries about 3 milligrams of iron, most of it from the dal; spinach’s iron absorbs poorly on its own, which is part of why the vitamin C pairing is worth doing.1 Sodium depends on how you salt the pot, so it isn’t listed. Varies with brands and portions.

Keeps

Cooled and covered, rasam keeps in the fridge for 3 to 4 days.10 Get it in within two hours of cooking,11 and in a wide container rather than a tall one so it cools faster. Reheat it the way you cooked it, to a froth and never a rolling boil. A froth is already past the 165°F that leftovers need,12 steaming hot all the way through, and a hard boil on day two dulls it just as much as it would have on day one. The spinach goes darker and softer after the first day and tastes the same. The sour sharpens a little as it sits, so taste before you salt. It freezes well without the spinach for 2 to 3 months;10 wilt fresh leaves into the reheated pot. By the second day the tadka has gone quiet; a fresh one, a teaspoon of oil with a pinch of mustard seed and a few curry leaves, wakes it back up.

Swaps

Dal. Masoor (split red lentils) cooks in about 20 minutes and works; so does moong dal. The rasam will be a touch less earthy.

Spinach. Any tender green works, including chard, amaranth leaves (mulai keerai or arai keerai in Tamil, thotakura in Telugu, at an Indian grocer), or a small handful of drumstick leaves. Frozen spinach works in a pinch; thaw and squeeze it first, and add it with the dal so it has time to heat through.

Tamarind. Lemon rasam is its own dish in Tamil kitchens. Skip the tamarind, simmer the tomatoes in 2 cups of plain water, and stir in the juice of a lemon once the heat is off.

Pepper. Black pepper carries the heat here. Drop to 1 teaspoon of peppercorns if you want it gentler, or add a flat half teaspoon if you want it to clear your head.

Asafoetida. The pinch of hing in the tadka is usually sold cut with wheat flour. If gluten matters at your table, buy a jar labeled gluten-free, usually compounded with rice flour instead, or leave it out and lose very little.

Curry leaves. Skip them if you can’t find them; it’s still rasam.

Oil. Ghee is traditional and lovely; use it if nobody at the table needs the pot vegan.

If iron is on your mind. A few orange segments, half a sliced bell pepper, or a wedge of guava on the side brings more vitamin C than anything in the pot. If you suspect your iron is low, a recipe can’t tell you; a ferritin test can, and your doctor can order one.

If you count carbohydrate. A bowl runs about 28 grams of carbohydrate with 6 grams of fiber. The rice adds to that. A small scoop under a big ladle of rasam is how it’s served anyway.

After bariatric surgery. This isn’t a clear liquid, and the pepper, chile, and tamarind aren’t early-weeks flavors. Later on, strained and made milder, with less pepper and no chile, it can work as a thin soup, but your surgical team decides which stage you’re in and when, and they’d rather you ask than guess.

Sources

  1. National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. Iron: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals. Updated September 4, 2025. (RDA 18 mg/day for women 19-50; ascorbic acid enhances nonheme iron bioavailability while phytate and certain polyphenols reduce it; effects of enhancers and inhibitors are attenuated by a typical western diet; plant foods such as spinach have low iron bioavailability because they contain absorption inhibitors such as polyphenols; women with heavy menstrual bleeding are a group at risk of inadequacy.) ods.od.nih.gov
  2. Hallberg L, Brune M, Rossander L. Effect of ascorbic acid on iron absorption from different types of meals. Studies with ascorbic-acid-rich foods and synthetic ascorbic acid given in different amounts with different meals. Hum Nutr Appl Nutr. 1986;40(2):97-113. (299 subjects; about 50 mg ascorbic acid per main meal desirable for optimum effect; ascorbic acid native to foods performed like the synthetic form.) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  3. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, year round average (FDC ID 170457, SR Legacy). FoodData Central. 2019. Per 100 g: 13.7 mg vitamin C, 0.27 mg iron. fdc.nal.usda.gov
  4. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. Spinach, raw (FDC ID 168462, SR Legacy). FoodData Central. 2019. Per 100 g: 28.1 mg vitamin C, 2.71 mg iron. fdc.nal.usda.gov
  5. Hurrell RF, Reddy M, Cook JD. Inhibition of non-haem iron absorption in man by polyphenolic-containing beverages. Br J Nutr. 1999;81(4):289-295. (Black tea reduced iron absorption from a bread meal by 79-94%; adding milk made little difference.) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  6. Morck TA, Lynch SR, Cook JD. Inhibition of food iron absorption by coffee. Am J Clin Nutr. 1983;37(3):416-420. (A cup of coffee reduced iron absorption from a hamburger meal by 39%, tea by 64%; coffee one hour before the meal caused no decrease, coffee one hour after inhibited as much as coffee with the meal.) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  7. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. Pigeon peas (red gram), mature seeds, raw (FDC ID 172436, SR Legacy). FoodData Central. 2019. Per 100 g: 343 kcal, 21.7 g protein, 15 g fiber, 5.23 mg iron. fdc.nal.usda.gov
  8. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. Tamarinds, raw (FDC ID 167763, SR Legacy). FoodData Central. 2019. Per 100 g: 239 kcal, 2.8 g protein, 5.1 g fiber, 62.5 g carbohydrate, 2.8 mg iron, 3.5 mg vitamin C. fdc.nal.usda.gov
  9. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Nutrient Data Laboratory. USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors, Release 6. December 2007. (Vitamin C retention: tomatoes, boiled or baked, 95 percent; vegetable greens, boiled, cooking water used, 70 percent; reheated greens 95 percent and reheated tomatoes 100 percent.) ars.usda.gov
  10. FoodSafety.gov, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Cold Food Storage Chart. Reviewed September 19, 2023. (Soups and stews with vegetables or meat added: 3 to 4 days in a refrigerator at 40°F or below; 2 to 3 months in a freezer at 0°F or below.) foodsafety.gov
  11. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Are You Storing Food Safely? Consumer Update, content current as of January 18, 2023. (Foods that require refrigeration, including leftovers, should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours, or one hour above 90°F.) fda.gov
  12. FoodSafety.gov, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart. Reviewed November 21, 2024. (Leftovers, any type: 165°F / 74°C.) foodsafety.gov