Delicious and easy to make no garlic pineapple rasam recipe – tangy and mildly-sweet South Indian style thin lentil soup or rasam with incredible flavors of pineapple.
Rasam is my ultimate comfort and favorite food. I have many rasam recipes on my blog, and today I am going to share one of the rasam varieties – pineapple rasam. This rasam is definitely a crowd-pleaser one.
As I mentioned in my Instant Pot tomato rasam post, I would define rasam as thin south Indian soup with or without lentils. :-) And for this pineapple rasam, we do use lentils, but we don’t use any tamarind.
Do check out my three other fruit-flavored rasam recipes – cherry rasam, lemon rasam, and watermelon rasam.
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Pineapple / Annasi Rasam
We call pineapples as annasi in the Tamil language hence the name annasi rasam or annasi pazha rasam.
Now let’s talk more about this rasam.
Guess what; I have tasted this rasam at one of the marriage functions (some call this rasam as Kalyana pineapple rasam) and instantly fell in love with it. I was bugging my mom to make it, and she would have made it once or twice, and that’s about it. So when I started to cook on my own, I started making this rasam quite frequently during pineapple season, and we all love it.
I am sure for the wedding menu; the caterers would grind the fresh rasam powder for this recipe. But I didn’t make fresh spice powder; instead, I went with regular homemade rasam podi to make the cooking faster and simple. :-)
I added a teaspoon of pepper powder to enhance the flavor and balance the sweetness of the pineapple.
Is the rasam too sweet?
One of the common questions that I get from my friends is, is this rasam too sweet?
No, not at all. We add ground pepper as well as the rasam powder to balance the sweetness.
Well, check the sweetness of your pineapple and adjust the spices accordingly. If your pineapples are super sweet, you can even reduce the amount of pineapples. I recommend slightly tangy and sweet pineapples for this recipe.
For this rasam, all you need is 250 grams of chopped pineapple, approx two heaped cups. I usually grind one cup of pineapple and chop the other half into cubes. We add both the pineapple puree and chopped pineapple for this rasam. As mentioned before, the tanginess from pineapples and tomatoes is sufficient, and no tamarind is required.
It’s pretty much similar to paruppu rasam without any garlic except for the addition of pineapple and skipping tamarind.
How to serve pineapple rasam
You can serve this with steamed rice and dry curry, especially a spicy dry curry like potato curry or yam. Or you can serve it as a soup. I love it both ways. :-)
How to make pineapple rasam
Now let’s see how to make this pineapple rasam with detailed step-wise pictures.
Cook the toor dal
- Pressure cook the toor dal by adding 1 cup of water and ¼ tsp of turmeric powder in an electric or stove-top pressure cooker.
- Mash the cooked dal once it is cooled down, and you can even grind in the mixer jar. That’s what I did.
Prepare the pineapple puree.
- Puree 125 grams or half the measure of the pineapple and set aside. If required, add ¼ to ½ cup of water while pureeing.
Prepare the rasam
- Add the chopped tomato, remaining pineapples, curry leaves, cilantro, salt, asafoetida, rasam powder, and ground pepper.
- Add two cups of water and mix well. Cook this mixture on a medium flame till the tomatoes become soft.
- Now add the pineapple puree and the remaining 1 cup of water and let it simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Finally, add the mashed/ground dal and mix well. If you have chopped your pineapple finely, you can skip the mashing part. As I chopped the pineapples into cubes, I mashed the pineapples roughly.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer. When it becomes frothy on top, turn off the heat. Do not boil the rasam.
Temper the rasam-
- In a separate tadka pan, heat the ghee or oil, and when it is hot, add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds.
- When the mustard seeds splutter, turn off the heat and add it to the rasam.
- Garnish it with more cilantro and serve hot with rice and dry curry or as a soup with papad.
Recipe Notes
- Pineapples – I recommend slightly tangy and sweet pineapples for this recipe.
- If your pineapples are too sweet, add more rasam powder to balance the sweetness, increase the tomatoes to 2 or add ¼ to ½ tsp of tamarind paste.
- If you pineapples are very tangy, skip the tomatoes and add ½ to 1 tsp of jaggery to balance the flavor.
- I did not add any garlic. But you can add 2 to 3 crushed garlic along with the tomatoes.
- I have used my homemade rasam powder for this recipe. You can prepare fresh rasam powder like in my cumin pepper rasam and use that instead.
- Skip asafoetida for the gluten-free version and skip ghee, and use oil for the vegan version.
Popular south Indian rasam recipes
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📖 Recipe
Pineapple Rasam | Annasi Rasam
Equipment
- saucepan
Ingredients
For the dal
- ¼ cup toor dal or split pigeon peas
- 1 cup water
- ¼ tsp ground turmeric
For the rasam
- 250 grams pineapple chopped and divided
- 1 tomato chopped
- 1 tbsp rasam powder
- 1 tsp ground pepper or to taste
- 2 tsp salt or to taste
- ¼ tsp asafoetida
- 2 tbsp cilantro finely chopped, divided
- 10 curry leaves
- 3 cups water divided
To Temper
- 2 tsp ghee use oil for the vegan version
- ½ tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
Instructions
- Pressure cook the toor dal by adding 1 cup of water and ¼ tsp of turmeric powder in an electric or stove-top pressure cooker. Mash the cooked dal once it is cooled down, and you can even grind in the mixer jar. That's what I did.
- Puree 125 grams or half the measure of the pineapple and set aside. If required, add ¼ to ½ cup of water while pureeing.
- Add the chopped tomato, remaining pineapples, curry leaves, cilantro, salt, asafoetida, rasam powder, and ground pepper.
- Add two cups of water and mix well. Cook this mixture on a medium flame till the tomatoes become soft. Now add the pineapple puree and the remaining 1 cup of water and let it simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Finally, add the mashed/ground dal and mix well. If you have chopped your pineapple finely, you can skip the mashing part. As I chopped the pineapples into cubes, I mashed the pineapples roughly.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer. When it becomes frothy on top, turn off the heat. Do not boil the rasam.
- In a separate tadka pan, heat the ghee or oil, and when it is hot, add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds.
- When the mustard seeds splutter, turn off the heat and add it to the rasam.
- Garnish it with more cilantro and serve hot with rice and dry curry or as a soup with papad.
Notes
- Pineapples – I recommend slightly tangy and sweet pineapples for this recipe.
- If your pineapples are too sweet, add more rasam powder to balance the sweetness, increase the tomatoes to 2 or add ¼ to ½ tsp of tamarind paste.
- If you pineapples are very tangy, skip the tomatoes and add ½ to 1 tsp of jaggery to balance the flavor.
- I did not add any garlic. But you can add 2 to 3 crushed garlic along with the tomatoes.
- I have used my homemade rasam powder for this recipe. You can prepare fresh rasam powder like in my cumin pepper rasam and use that instead.
- Skip asafoetida for the gluten-free version and skip ghee, and use oil for the vegan version.
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It varies depending upon the product types or brands.
Update Notes: Updated the recipe with new pics, and recipe cards in 2020.
I’ve never tried this before, but it sounds delicious!
Thanks Salma. Please do try it.
looks yum my favorite
Thanks a lot Swathi
I never tasted it before…but it looks inviting :) :)
Thanks Ranjani.
I have never had pineapple rasa this is a complete new recipe for me!! I’m assuming the tartness of tomato and natural sweetness of pineapple with the rasa am masala must compliment each other so well. Must try this recipe soon ?
http://www.mumbaitomelbourne.com/food-and-health-blog-posts/baingan-bharta-punjabi-style-smoky-mashed-eggplants
Oh yeah.. Its colorful and flavorful. There is something between pepper powder and pineapple. Please do try and let me know how it turned out.
Pineapple rasam is again something new to me :-) recipe looks so flavorful and lovely clicks!
Thanks a lot kushi
I do pineapple rasam similar way..my fav
.yum
Thanks Vidya