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Sabzi (vegetables)Punjabi recipes

Tinday Masala Recipe

ٹینڈے مصالحہ بنانے کا طریقہ

Punjabi tinday masala: tender round gourds cooked in their own juices with onion, tomato and green chilli until soft and coated in a thick masala.
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Illustration of Tinday Masala

Prep

15 min

Cook

35 min

Total

50 min

Serves

4

Difficulty

Easy

Spice

Mild

Tinday are the small, pale green round gourds of a Punjabi summer. They are mild and watery, so they need a well-bhuna onion and tomato masala to carry them. Cooked slowly with a lid, they release their own liquid and turn soft and silky, soaking up all the spice.

Ingredients

4 servings

For 4 servings

Measures

Method

  1. Peel the tinday thinly with a peeler, cut off both ends and quarter them. If the seeds are large and hard, scoop them out.

  2. Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat. Add the cumin, then the onion, and fry until golden.

    ⏱ 7 min

  3. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for a minute, then add the tomatoes, green chillies, salt, red chilli, turmeric and coriander powder. Bhuno until the oil separates.

    ⏱ 6 min

  4. Add the tinday and stir-fry in the masala for 3 to 4 minutes. Do not add water.

    ⏱ 4 min

  5. Cover and cook on low heat, stirring every 5 minutes, until the tinday are completely soft and translucent.

    ⏱ 15 min

  6. Uncover, turn the heat up and fry until the liquid dries and the masala clings to the tinday. Sprinkle the garam masala and coriander and serve.

    ⏱ 4 min

Tips for the best result

  • Choose small, firm tinday with soft fuzz on the skin; big ones are seedy and spongy.
  • For tinday gosht, cook 500 g of mutton in the masala until tender first, then add the tinday.

Common mistakes

  • Adding water. Tinday are mostly water already and will turn into a thin, bland curry.
  • Stopping before the final bhunai. The last few minutes on high heat concentrate the flavour.

How to serve

Serve with hot roti and a bowl of daal or yogurt.

Storing and reheating

Keeps 2 days in the fridge. Reheat gently in a pan. Not good for freezing.

Nutrition and cost

Worked out from the ingredients, not measured in a lab. Treat both as a rough guide.

Per serving Estimate

Calories
215kcal
Protein
4g
Fat
18g
Carbs
14g
Fibre
3.9g
Sodium
740mg

Estimated from USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy (April 2018), public domain values for the raw ingredients (100% of the recipe by weight had data). Deep-frying oil is counted at 20%; bones and water lost in cooking are not subtracted, so bone-in and fried dishes can read high. Not medical advice. Method

Cost per servingEstimate

≈ Rs 26

Whole dish ≈ Rs 105 · 36% of ingredients by weight priced

From the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics weekly SPI, week ended 29 Oct 2026. Spices, herbs and some vegetables are not in the SPI and are left out unless you add your price, so the real cost is a little higher. How this works

Tinday Masala: questions people ask

Do you peel tinday before cooking?

Yes, a thin peel removes the fuzzy skin, which can taste slightly bitter. Very young tinday can be cooked with the skin on.

Why are my tinday still hard?

They were probably over-mature, or the heat was too high so the masala dried before they softened. Keep the lid on and the heat low until a spoon cuts through them easily.

Serve it with, and similar recipes

All sabzi recipes

Read this recipe in Urdu: ٹینڈے مصالحہ بنانے کا طریقہ

https://handi.danixsoft.com/recipes/tinday-masala · Handi, DanixSoft