Plain Rasam is a common dish in South Indian meals. It is good for sore throat and cold. Rasam recipe without rasam powder is below.
Rasam Recipe/Charu Recipe without rasam powder
Ingredients
- Water – 4 cups
- Tamarind paste – 1 tbsp
- Tomato – 1 small
- Curry leaves – a handful
- Black Pepper – 2 tsp
- Cumin seeds – 1 tsp (Jeera)
- Fenugreek seeds – 1tsp (methulu/vendhayam/methi)
- Red Chili – 1
- Garlic – 3 cloves
- Coriander leaves – handful (kothimeera aakulu/kothamalli tala)
- Asafoetida – a pinch (hing/inguva/perunkayam)
- Mustard seeds – 1 tsp (aavaalu/kadugu)
- Cumin seeds – 1 tsp (Jeera)
- Oil – 2 tsp
- Salt – as needed
Method
- Wash the coriander leaves, tomato and chop them.
- Chop the garlic into small pieces.
- Dry roast pepper, 1 tsp cumin, fenugreek seeds for half a minute and let it cool.
- Grind roasted pepper, cumin, fenugreek seeds into a fine powder.
- Turn on the stove and place a thick bottomed vessel on it.
- On a medium to low flame, pour the oil in this vessel, let it heat and then add mustard seeds.
- After mustard seeds crackle, add cumin seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves and red chili.
- Now fry the garlic and tomato also till tomato becomes mushy.
- Add tamarind paste to this vessel along with the water and also the powder you prepared.
- Stir the contents and let it come to a boil. Add necessary salt.
- Simmer for two minutes, add the chopped coriander leaves, stir and turn off the stove.
- Now Rasam/Charu is ready.

Also read: Kollu Rasam Recipe (Horse gram soup or Ulava Charu for weight loss)
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Tips
- You can soak fist sized tamarind in some warm water to extract tamarind paste if you do not have the tamarind paste.
- Kollu Rasam Recipe: If you just add little boiled horse gram powder and water used to boil it, and follow the same recipe, you will make tasty Horse Gram Rasam or Ulava chaaru or Kollu rasam.
- You can directly use pepper powder and cumin powder instead of roasting and grinding them to save time.
- If you add a little boiled and mashed toor daal to this rasam, it will taste even richer. This version is called Pappu chaaru or Paruppu rasam.
- My favorite ready-made tamarind paste is Tamarind Paste from Spice Perfection
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- Enjoy this rasam/charu/soup with hot rice or you can even drink it directly from a glass.

This is a much simpler recipe than yesterday’s. It sounds like it tastes good! I will have to try this recipe, and/or taste this someday! 🙂
Nice to hear that.
Hello,
Thanks for sharing this recipe. I am set to try it this weekend.
Many Thanks
Cool
Do try.
It looks so tasty! Now I just wonder where I can get all those spices ingredients. In Lithuania they are not so easy to come across.
Great..Amazon online portal has everything. Try my links above for the products.