Easy Homemade Chai Recipe
Ever since we stumbled across this easy chai recipe, we’ve been hooked. Yes, it requires a bit more effort to make than just simply adding a tea bag to a cup of boiling water but it offers so much more flavour and depth! It’s better than most pre-made chai mix that we’ve purchased in stores (in our opinion).
What is Chai?
Chai is a South Asian tea beverage made by boiling black tea in milk and water along with a mixture spices. It is derived from the Hindi word for “tea” which was derived from “cha”, the Chinese word for “tea”. Since chai literally means tea, it is incorrect when referring to this drink as “Chai Tea” because you are literally saying “Tea Tea”.
Key Ingredients for Chai Recipe
There is some flexibility in terms of what types of spices (and herbs if you choose) to add to your chai. For our easy chai recipe, you will need the following key spices:
- Green Cardamom Pods
- Cloves
- Cinnamon Sticks
- Ginger
If you checked out our Easy Chicken Biryani recipe, we go over some of the key Indian spices that you should have in your pantry, including photos of what they look like.
In addition to spices, you will also need milk, water, and loose black leaf tea. You can use any loose black tea leaves of your choice.
How to Make Chai Recipe
1. Prepare Spices – if you have a spice grinder, ground up cinnamon stick, green cardamom pods, and cloves until it is a fine powder. If you don’t have a spice grinder, you can use a mortar and pestle to grind it as fine as you can. It’s ok if you have larger chunks as we will strain this out later.
2. Add spices and tea leaves to a pot of boiling water – In a small saucepot, add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. One boiling, add your smashed ginger and ground spices and let it boil for a minute. Then, add your 3 heaping teaspoons of black tea leaves of your choice to the pot and boil for another minute.
3. Add milk and Kadna – Add your milk to the pot and wait for it to boil. Watch the pot closely as it will start to foam aggressively and potentially boil over. You want to remove the pot off the heat as the foam starts to rise, just before it foams over to allow it to settle down (i.e. deflate), and repeat this process 3 to 4 times. This process is called “Kadna”
4. Strain and serve – After you kadna 3 to 4 times, turn off the heat and strain the tea through a mesh strainer to remove tea leaves and spices. Add sugar to taste and serve immediately.
Did you enjoy this recipe? You may also like the following:
Easy Chai Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups water
- 1 tbsp ginger, crushed and roughly chopped
- 10 green cardamom pods
- 3-4 cloves
- 2 inch cinnamon stick
- 3 tsp loose black tea leaves
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar (you can adjust according to your preferred sweetness level)
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Instructions
- 1. In a small pot, heat up your two cups of water until it reaches a boil
- 2. Meanwhile, using a mortar and pestle (or a spice grinder), grind the green cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, and cloves until they are fine (does not need to be in powder form). Refer to image in blog post for reference.
- 3. Cut a tablespoon worth of ginger and crush it with a knife to release the juices. Roughly chop it.
- 4. Once the water is boiling, add the ginger and ground spices. Allow to boil for about a minute.
- 5. Add 3 heaping teaspoons of loose black leaf tea and boil for a minute.
- 6. Add the milk and bring to a boil. Closely watch the pot to ensure it does not boil over.
- 7. When the foam rises to the top, lower the heat. Do this 3 or 4 times. This process is called “Kadna”.
- 8. After the 4th Kadna, turn the heat off and take the chai off the stove. Leave it to rest for 1 minutes.
- 9. In the meantime, add 2 tbsp of sugar (or adjust according to your preferred sweetness level) into a large liquid measuring cup. Pour the chai through a strainer into the large measuring cup. Stir to dissolve sugar. Pour into individual cups to serve.
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