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[1] A glass of Strawberry Mint Dah!-brand lassi (all photos © Dahlicious).
[2] Lassi served India-style, topped with rose petals and chopped pistachio nuts.
[3] Pouring plain lassi into traditional terracotta cups, called kulhar or kulhad.
[4] Pour yourself a refreshing glass of lassi; here, Alphonse Mango, Strawberry Mint, and Tomato Lassi With Mixed Berries.
[5] The Tomato Lassi With Mixed Berries flavor was created to dovetail with a child’s book by Padma Lakshmi‡‡, Tomatoes for Neela.
[6] Freeze lassi into frozen yogurt-type pops.
[7] Lassi can also be churned into “frozen yogurt.” Check out the many sweet and savory recipes on the Dah! website.
[8] Turn lassi into pannacotta. Here’s the recipe.
[9] Curried squash soup with lassi garnish. Here’s the recipe.
[10] Lassi at breakfast: Try Vanilla Cardamom Dah! with pancakes or waffles.
[11] Lassi with bagels? Why not?
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Our Top Pick Of The Week is Dah! Lassi, a probiotic, yogurt-based drink. There are numerous ways to get more probiotics, and lassi (LAH-see) is a refreshing, tasty, way to do it.
It’s also lactose-intolerance* friendly.
Lassi, “the original smoothie,” is one of the most-drunk beverages in Northern India, after tea. You should consider it for your own beverage “menu.” It’s delicious (or Dah!licious, as the company likes to say).
Lassi, a regional name for “yogurt drink,” is made from dahi, a traditional whole-milk yogurt from India that goes through a slow culturing process.
Like other plain yogurts (the different types of yogurt), dahi-style yogurt is low in calories, high in probiotics, and filled with protein. Like other yogurts, it’s smooth and creamy.
But due to the slow culturing process, plain dahi has a slightly sweeter flavor profile (i.e., it’s less tart).
Dahi can be enjoyed by itself or used in cooking. It’s often used to make sweet or salty lassi.
Lassi in turn can be used to make anything from dips to frozen desserts (photos #6 and #7). Check out all the recipes on the Dah! website.
Trivia: Yogurt, and thus yogurt-based drinks, can be made from any mammal’s milk. Milk from camels, cows, goats, sheep, water buffalos, and yaks is used around the world. The taste and texture of the drink will vary widely depending on the milk.
In the U.S., both lassi and kefir yogurt drinks are usually cow’s milk-based.
HOW TO SERVE LASSI
The idea of the lassi drink is simple: Dahi is blended with water to thin it into drinkable yogurt (some historians believe that lassi may have been created as a way to stretch yogurt in the bowl, by stirring some liquid into it).
The traditional way to serve lassi is in an unglazed terracotta cup called a kulhar or kulhad (photo #3).
In India, lassi is served as an apéritif; drunk with meals; consumed as a quick breakfast, light lunch, or dessert (sweet lassi); and enjoyed as a healthful sweet or savory snack at any time of day.
Plain or savory-flavored lassi is a perfect drink with spicy Indian food.
Sweet lassi, perhaps blended with extra fruit and ice cubes—is a great smoothie.
Sweet flavors are blended with fruit and sugar (perhaps the favorite flavor is mango, of which there are many in India).
Savory flavors are mixed with salt and/or spices, typically cumin, cardamom, fresh ginger, or mint leaves.
Rose petals and chopped pistachios are a popular garnish for sweet lassi (photo #2).
In some areas, malai (clotted cream) may be spooned on top before serving.
There’s more about garnishing below.
There’s much more about lassi below, too. First, we’ll take a look at Dah!, a delicious lassi available in a store near you (store locator). (Dahi is a traditional Indian yogurt from which lassi is made.)
Below:
The history of lassi.
Lassi vs. kefir vs. buttermilk: the difference.
DAH! LASSI, THE TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
If you don’t know lassi, you should get to know Dah!.
Dah! was created by two natives of India living in the Boston area, who wanted the “feeling of home” provided by authentic lassi.
Dah!’s products reflect the ancient Indian techniques of culturing yogurt at lower temperatures for longer times than most yogurt drinks. The result is a high-probiotic†, richly-textured, intensely flavorful yogurt that also happens to be excellent for digestive health.
Dah! flavors include (photo #4):
Alphonse‡ Mango
Peach With Honey
Plain
Strawberry Mint (photo #1)
Tomato Lassi With Mixed Berries‡‡ (photo #5)
Vanilla With Cardamom
The line is gluten-free and certified kosher by OU.
The flavors are available nationwide in 32-ounce bottles—here’s a store locator.
In 2020, Dah! took home the Gold Sofi Award (the specialty food industry’s top award) in the yogurt and kefir category for Alphonso Mango lassi.
The company also makes dahi, whole milk plain yogurt, and India-style almond yogurt.
(We find the bottles so attractive that we repurpose the empties for other cold beverages—iced tea, iced coffee, iced water.)
The flavors are delicious as is, but they also provide a blank canvas for you to make them even more flavorful and eye-appealing with garnishes.
Discover more at Dahlicious.com.
GARNISH YOUR LASSI
Make the drink even more special with herbs and spices. For a summer gathering, you can set up a sweet and savory lassi bar so guests can customize their own drinks. It will be a hit!
Sweet Lassi
Fresh Fruit: A fruit garnish is always appropriate—a berry, banana slice, or fruit chunk notched and set on the rim of the glass or on a cocktail pick.
Dried Fruit: Dates and other dried fruits are also delicious garnishes, or a can be served on the side.
Sweet Herbs & Spices: Try allspice, basil, cardamom, cinnamon, citrus zest or peel, cloves, ginger, mint, nutmeg, pink peppercorns, pomegranate arils (seeds), saffron, star anise; plus orange blossom water or rose water.
Nuts: Add a sprinkle of slivered almonds, chopped cashews, or pistachios.
Savory Lassi
Savory Herbs & Spices: basil, black or red salt, celery seed, cardamom, chili powder, cilantro, cloves, coriander seed, cracked pepper or whole peppercorns, cumin, curry powder, fenugreek, poppy seed, saffron or turmeric.
Fresh Herbs: fresh chives or scallions, dill, lemon or line zest or peel, mint, parsley.
Brined: capers, chopped olives or pickles.
Stalks: A celery or fennel stalk or a pickle spear, Bloody Mary-style.
Salted Lassi: Salt the rim of the glass of plain lassi, as you would a Margarita. You can also rim the glass with any of the herbs and spices.
Nuts: Add a sprinkle of slivered almonds, chopped cashews, or pistachios.
We often enjoy plain lassi with an herb blend of snipped fresh basil, cilantro, and parsley with a shake of garlic salt, mixed into the glass; and an optional rim of sesame or chia seeds.
THE HISTORY OF LASSI
The earliest mentions of lassi, promoting the health benefits of the yogurt beverage, have been found in the ancient Indian Ayurvedic texts dating as far back as 1000 B.C.E.
The exact date can’t be pinpointed, but we know that yogurt was produced in Mesopotamia around 5000 B.C.E. Important trade routes were established between the two regions by 1000 B.C.E.
The Middle East had its own version of the yogurt drink, kefir, which sources date to around 2000 B.C.E. See the differences in the next section.
The modern lassi drink is believed to have originated in Punjab, a state of India located in the northwestern part of the subcontinent.
When it appeared around 1000 B.C.E., some ancients called lassi the “food of the gods”* [source]. We moderns might choose to call it “refreshing and good for you.”
According to Arun Chopra, formerly executive chef of the Taj Majal Palace Hotel:
“In the old days, when there were no refrigerators, the Punjabi farmers used to drink milk cooled in a clay pot and mixed with curd [dahi/yogurt] and sugar and stirred by a wooden stick [source].”
The drink spread to the rest of the world via the British Raj, which ruled the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947.
Returning military as well as civilians brought their favorite Indian dishes back to Great Britain and other parts of the British Empire.
LASSI VS. KEFIR
As with kefir, another yogurt-based beverage that originated in the Middle East, lassi can often be tolerated by lactose-intolerant people.
The probiotic bacteria in both drinks compensate for the lack of an intolerant person’s production of lactase, the enzyme that digests milk proteins.
Lassi is a simpler recipe than kefir.
Kefir is made by fermenting milk: adding a colony of bacteria and yeast to milk.
Lassi can be made simply by mixing milk or water into plain or flavored yogurt.
Dahi yogurt, and thus lassi, contains bacteria only, no yeast [source].
Lassi contains five strains of bacteria†, but kefir contains many more—up to 36 different microorganisms (including yeast).
LASSI VS. BUTTERMILK
Buttermilk is a byproduct of milk, the liquid that is left over when butter is churned from cream.
Lassi, on the other hand, is made from yogurt, which is milk that has been fermented with bacteria cultures.
To make commercial buttermilk in quantity, milk is fermented with bacteria that produce acidic compounds, and is then pasteurized. That’s very similar to how yogurt is cultured (and then turned into lassi).
Buttermilk has the texture of milk but tastes like yogurt, although it is less acidic. It’s thinner than lassi but can be slightly more sour or tart.
Buttermilk and plain lassi can be substituted for each other in recipes.
Enjoy every sip!
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