All About Samosas

Few Indian dishes are as widely popular and beloved as samosas, and it’s not exactly a mystery why: No matter what they’re filled with or what you dip them in, these deep-fried snacks are always absolutely delicious. In honor of World Samosa Day on September 5th, here’s a quick crash course in everyone’s favorite savory pastry.

Samosas are savory filled pastries popular throughout South Asia (and in South Asian diasporas). Most often triangular in shape, samosas can be deep-fried or baked and filled with just about anything your heart desires. A richly spiced potato filling with green peas is probably the most iconic and recognizable version, but these delicious pastries can also be filled with other vegetables, lentils, paneer cheese, chicken, minced lamb, or a combination of any of these ingredients. The finishing touch: A few different sauces or chutneys on the side for dipping. Cilantro, mint, and tamarind chutneys, along with some creamy raita, are some of the most popular (and delicious!) samosa accompaniments.

Like so many other dishes in Indian cuisine, samosas have a long, storied history reaching back at least a thousand years. It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact date, but most sources suggest that Central Asian savory filled pastries called samsas arrived in India sometime in the 13th or 14th century. As you can probably tell from the name, samsas are very similar to samosas; the biggest difference is that samsas are almost always baked, not fried. Over the centuries, Indian cooks adapted these filled pastries to local tastes using local ingredients—and at some point, they started deep-frying them. The samosa as we know and love it was born.

Making samosas from scratch is a true labor of love. You need to prepare the dough, the filling (or fillings, if it’s a party), and the chutneys; each samosa has to be filled and shaped by hand, then fried in hot oil. It’s a lot of work! That’s why we made our North Indian and Sweet Potato Samosas grab-and-go. Whenever you’re craving a savory, delicious samosa, you can just pick up one of our ready to eat meals—and enjoy it wherever you go.