Rainbow Rotis | Vegetable Flatbread

Rainbow Rotis | Vegetable Flatbread. Colorful rotis/phulkas made with spinach, beets and carrots. A healthy and whimsical addition to your meal.

Rotis, also known as chapattis and/or phulkas are an essential part of Indian cuisine. Made of whole wheat flour and water, they provide the perfect canvas for our flavorful dishes. How much roti and rice is made at home is usually based on where in India you hail from. Being North Indian, we grew up on more roti vs. rice. My husband on the other hand had a pretty even mix of both. Little Mirchi enjoys both roti and rice, and I offer both at dinner time.

A few days ago, Little Mirchi started asking me for rainbow rotis. I’m not sure where she saw them or even heard of that term but she kept saying she wanted colorful rotis. Instead of using dyes for the colors I opted to use vegetables instead, why not take advantage of natures colors?! As a mom I’m always on a mission to get Little Mirchi to eat more vegetables. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. For the green we used spinach, beets worked perfectly for the pinkish red hue and carrots and turmeric gave us a bright and beautiful orange color.

I chose to lightly steam all the vegetables. This provided for a silky purée that was easy to knead the dough with. You can use a good processor or blender to purée the vegetables, I used my Vitamix and blended until smooth. Also, because the vegetables were steamed, I didn’t have to add any additional water to the dough. Resting the atta before making the rotis is essential, the dough was pillowy soft after resting at room temperature for a few hours. For ease of digestion, I added freshly grated ginger to the purées, you could replace that with hing if you prefer.

For the spinach purée

Take a large bunch or 5 packed cups spinach and steam until wilted. In a blender purée spinach with 1/4 teaspoon grated ginger until smooth.

For the beet purée

Take a medium beet, wash and steam until fork tender. Peel and discard the skin. Quarter it and blend it with 1/4 teaspoon grated ginger until smooth.

For the carrot purée

Take 4 medium size carrots, peel and steam until fork tender. Half and blend with 1/4 teaspoon turmeric and 1/4 teaspoon grated ginger, until smooth.

This will yield approximately 1 cup + of each purée. To make the dough you will need approximately 1 cup of whole wheat flour : 3/4 cup vegetable purée : 1/4 teaspoon salt.

You can mix the doughs differently to create patterns, marbling effects and different variations of your rotis. Little Mirchi helped me and we created all sorts of combinations, the heart being our favorite.

To store, cool rotis and separate every other roti between wax or parchment paper. Seal in an airtight container and store for 3-4 days. When reheating bring desired amount of rotis to room temperature and warm on a hot tava/skillet.

Enjoy