Healthy Food in Udaipur: Makki Roti, Raab, Laal Maas, Lake Fish and Mewari Meals, With Calories

Mewar’s maize: the grain behind healthy food in Udaipur

Udaipur shares dal-baati, gatte and kachori with the rest of Rajasthan, but the Mewar kitchen has its own centre of gravity: makki, maize. A 2022 Deccan Chronicle piece on Mewari cuisine lists local white corn, desi gur (jaggery) and home-made ghee among the region’s defining ingredients, and Wikipedia’s Rajasthani cuisine page names maize among the grains for thick rotla and for raab, and credits Mewar with paniya churio, a crushed flatbread mixed with jaggery and warm ghee and eaten after meals. For anyone trying to eat well in Udaipur, maize is a gift. The Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (IFCT, ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition) give dry maize 334 kcal, 8.8 g of protein and 12.2 g of fibre per 100 g, so a maize roti is filling for its calories.

The catch is the same one that runs through Rajasthani cooking: ghee. The open Indian Nutrient Databank (INDB), which calculates more than 1,000 Indian recipes from IFCT values, includes a makki ki roti from a standard cookery manual. Its recipe uses 60 g of maize flour and 2 tablespoons of ghee for two rotis, which works out at about 224 kcal and 14.3 g of fat per roti. Made at home from 40 g of flour on a dry tawa, the same roti is about 134 kcal.

Calories and protein in Udaipur’s Mewari food

Each figure below either comes straight from INDB or is our own calculation from IFCT 2017 for the amounts stated (“calc”). Where INDB has no Mewari version of a dish, we use the closest standard recipe and say so. Home and restaurant cooking in Udaipur often uses more fat than cookbooks do, so read these as the lean end of the range. Our list of calories in Indian food covers dishes from the rest of the country.

Raab is the quiet hero of that table. Wikipedia’s Rajasthani cuisine page describes it as millet or maize flour cooked in buttermilk, and in a Mewar winter makki raab does the job porridge does elsewhere: warm, filling and light. At about 163 kcal with nearly 8 g of protein, it makes a far better start to the day than a kachori, and a teaspoon of ghee in the tadka adds about 45 kcal if you want it richer.

Laal maas, safed maas and lake fish: Udaipur’s protein-rich side

Udaipur’s food was never only vegetarian. Incredible India, the tourism ministry’s site, describes the city’s food as ranging from vegetarian dishes to game meat cooked with ghee, chillies and garlic, and names laal maas among the dishes to try. Its paler sibling, the white-gravy meat curry, appears on Wikipedia’s list of Rajasthani dishes as dhaulo maans; in Udaipur you will see it on menus as safed maas.

Neither curry has an analysed nutrient value we could find. What we can say is where the numbers come from. The meat itself is lean and protein-dense: IFCT 2017 gives goat leg meat 160 kcal and 22.1 g of protein per 100 g, so a 120 g portion before cooking holds about 26.5 g of protein for about 192 kcal. The fat in the pot is everything else, and each tablespoon of ghee (15 g) adds about 135 kcal. INDB’s mutton korma, a yoghurt-and-nut gravy close to a safed maas, lands at about 424 kcal and 26 g of protein a bowl. Eat the meat, leave the pool of ghee on top, and pair it with one makki roti rather than three.

Udaipur is also a lake district, and its fish deserves more attention. Jaisamand, which Rajasthan Tourism calls the second-largest man-made sweet-water lake in Asia, lends its name to a Mewari fish curry, maachli Jaisamandi, featured in the Deccan Chronicle piece. IFCT 2017 lists rohu at 102 kcal and 19.7 g of protein per 100 g raw, and INDB’s home-style fish curry with 100 g of rohu comes to about 282 kcal and 22 g of protein a bowl: one of the best protein-per-calorie meals in the city.

Kachori, poha and ghewar: Udaipur’s richest habits, handled

Incredible India’s Udaipur page lists kachori, pyaaz kachori and mawa kachori among the city’s street specialities and calls ghewar, made with flour, ghee and sugar syrup, its local sweet masterpiece. All of them are deep-fried, and INDB’s fried recipes count every drop of the frying oil, which overstates what ends up in the food, so we haven’t put a number on them. They are high-calorie and low in protein; that is enough to plan around.

• Breakfast kachori: swap it for poha on most days. A bowl of vegetable poha is about 177 kcal; add a glass of milk or a bowl of curd for protein, which poha alone lacks.
• Mawa kachori: it is a sweet, not a snack. Share one after a meal rather than eating it on its own mid-afternoon.
• Ghewar: a festival food, offered at Teej. One small piece in the season is fine; a box in the fridge is not.
• Kesar badam milk: at about 284 kcal with buffalo milk and two teaspoons of sugar, it is a meal’s worth of energy in a glass. Made with 200 ml of cow’s milk instead, it drops to about 217 kcal.

Sugar is the quiet problem in Udaipur’s sweets and drinks. The ICMR-NIN Dietary Guidelines for Indians (2024) advise adults to avoid added sugar or keep it to 20–25 g a day. One glass of sweetened kesar milk with 10 g of sugar uses about half of that before any mithai.

Dal-baati in Udaipur, briefly

Udaipur restaurants serve dal-baati-churma as proudly as Jaipur’s do, and Incredible India calls it the city’s iconic dish. We have broken down a full plate, baati by baati, on our page about healthy food in Jaipur; the same rules work here. Eat the dal in a full bowl, take one baati without the extra ghee bath, and share the churma.

Getting enough protein on Udaipur food

The ICMR-NIN guidelines set the protein allowance for healthy adults at 0.83 g per kg of body weight a day, or about 54 g for someone weighing 65 kg, and suggest that around 15% of energy from protein helps preserve muscle during a 500–750 kcal daily deficit. Their model 2,000 kcal plate includes 300 ml of milk or curd and 85 g of pulses, and allows 30 g of those pulses to be swapped for fish or meat. The protein intake calculator gives your own target.

• Vegetarians: build every main meal around a bowl of dal (chana dal gives about 12 g), add curd or chaas twice a day, and use paneer, which IFCT 2017 puts at 305 kcal and 18.9 g of protein per 100 g, in measured 50 g portions.
• Eggetarians: two boiled eggs add about 13 g of protein for about 137 kcal (INDB).
• Fish and meat eaters: a bowl of lake fish curry two or three times a week covers a day’s gap on its own.

For a full week of meals built this way, see our guides to a high-protein vegetarian Indian diet and protein in Indian food.

A Mewari day of eating at about 1,780 kcal

This vegetarian day uses only the values above and food any Udaipur kitchen can make. It comes to about 1,780 kcal and 73 g of protein. A plate of cucumber, onion and tomato with lunch and dinner is extra and nearly free. To eat fish instead, swap the palak paneer for a bowl of fish curry: about 50 kcal more and 10 g more protein.

Losing fat: the ICMR-NIN guidelines call half a kilogram a week a safe rate and say weight-loss diets shouldn’t go below 1,000 kcal a day. Smaller adults may lose weight on this day as written; larger or very active ones will need more, so set your own number with the calorie deficit calculator. Building muscle: add a second bowl of dal or curd and another makki roti, and lift three times a week.

Prefer your gym? Personal Gym Training in Udaipur puts a coach on your phone beside the rack, while Personal Home Training in Udaipur needs only a mat. Training for the September race? The Udaipur half marathon guide covers race-week eating. Burn some of those makki rotis with cycling in Udaipur or the hill walks in treks near Udaipur, compare costs in gym fees in Udaipur, and see online personal training in Udaipur for everything else.