Onam 2026: 7

Kerala Desserts

To Sweeten Your Sadhya Experience

Onam is one of the most popular & vibrant Malayali festivals, which is celebrated primarily in Kerala. It’s the annual harvest festival that lasts for ten days and is a culmination of community, ancient traditions, and the sweetest treats! During this festival, a grand vegetarian feast known as ‘Onam Sadhya’ is prepared, featuring a mix of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy flavours, served on a fresh banana leaf. Here, in this article, we have focused on all things sweet. Here’s a list of all the seven iconic desserts served during Sadhya. And you can make these at home too! 

Ada refers to dried rice pasta flakes, a popular ingredient for many desserts in Kerala. Pradhaman is Malayali for "the first" or "foremost" and refers to the top and most sacred sweet dish served at a traditional Kerala feast. To make this rich, traditional dessert for Onam Sadhya, boiled ada is first simmered in jaggery syrup, and then thin and thick coconut milk are added. The mixture is flavoured with fried nuts, aromatic cardamom powder, and other ingredients, and served hot. It is creamy and nutty, with a caramel-like sweetness. 

Much like pradhanam, payasam is also a category of desserts in Kerala. It refers to milk-based sweets. Paal payasam, in particular, is made by slow-cooking rice, milk, and sugar until rich, creamy, and lightly pink. It is smooth and velvety, almost like the North Indian kheer, with soft grains of rice that melt in the mouth. The pradhanam has a more rustic appeal, while the payasam is lighter but still creamy. 

Unniyappam, also known as karollappam, are a sweet, fried snack made from rice, jaggery, banana, and roasted coconut pieces. Popular across Kerala, these sweet, round balls also have a variation where the banana is swapped for jackfruit preserves, 

To make these crispy yet fluffy round balls, combine all ingredients (rice flour, mashed bananas, jaggery syrup, fried coconut, sesame seeds, a pinch of salt, cardamom powder and baking soda) into the batter and let it rest. Then, fry in an appam pan on medium-low heat. 

Ada isn’t just the base of a creamy pradhanam but also the core ingredient for this sweet, stuffed crepe-like dish. Also known as elayappam, it involves a rice flour dough stuffed with a sweet coconut and jaggery filling. The entire thing is wrapped and steamed inside a banana leaf. It has a distinctly earthy fragrance, a moist filling, and a soft, chewy crust. Overall, the flavour is naturally sweet, rich, and warm with deep caramel notes from the jaggery.

Chakka payasam is essentially jackfruit (chakka) kheer, made from ripe jackfruit, jaggery, and coconut milk. Since it uses ripe jackfruit, it has to be sautéed first to turn it into a paste. This paste is cooked with jaggery syrup till it thickens, and then simmered in thick coconut milk. At the end, thick coconut milk is added after turning off the heat. Garnished with fried nuts and coconut pieces, chakka payasam has a distinct aroma of ripe jackfruit, balanced by the familiar earthy notes of melted jaggery.

A core, mandatory dessert of the Onam Sadhya, parippu payasam is made from split moon fal (parippu). The other ingredients remain the same, i.e. sweet jaggery and rich coconut milk. The dal is roasted, cooked, and mashed before being mixed with jaggery and coconut milk. The Sadhya usually includes two to three varieties of payasam, served at the end of the main meal. Parippu payasam is usually one of the three in a traditional feast. 

You may not find this sweet treat in all feasts, but it’s almost always a part of regional Onam sadhya meals and wedding festivities. It is a sweet flatbread: soft, pliable, and slightly flaky on the outside with a smooth, melt-in-the-mouth lentil centre. The dough is made from maida, the filling from cooked chana dal and jaggery, and rice flour is used to dust the stuffed roll. Roasted on a tawa with ghee, it’s warm, sweet, and comforting.

Contrary to popular perceptions, Onam Sadhya isn’t just about one type or category of desserts. There’s a lot to sample and savour, from regional delights like boli to classic sweets like pradhanam. You can select the desserts to balance different textures and flavours, or go for a traditional selection of payasams. Whatever the case, the Onam Sadhya meal will definitely end on a sweet note.