Balasa Jeera Masala Papad For Crisp, Flavorful Bites

As a complimentary starter at restaurants or chakna with your drink, the love for papad is eternal.

An elaborate serving of veggie-loaded masala papad or crushed and eaten with dahi and roti, what makes this so appetizing is the clean, simple flavor. We put a ready-to-use variant to the test in our Balasa Jeera Masala Papad review. Flavor, texture, freshness were certain parameters. 

Does this make for a good pick with everyday meals?

Key details are explained in the table below.

What were we looking for when reviewing Balasa Jeera Masala Papad? What were the parameters we set?

Flavor, freshness, crispness were the factors we gauged this product across.

1. Taste

The sub-parameters here were the flavors and freshness. 

Urad dal is the appropriate base for papad as it is quite neutral, by itself. Not that it doesn’t have a flavor of its own. Freshness of ingredients plays a key role here as expired ingredients lend an undesirable flavor. Jeera, when roasted, has a deeper flavor. Salt and soda must be added in balanced quantities to arrive at a pleasing flavor.

Did Balasa Jeera Masala Papad get these elements right?

2. Texture

Papad too thick brings down the experience. We were looking for thin papads that have a light, crisp bite. Do the papads retain the fresh crisp bite a few hours after roasting? If yes, that would be a plus!

3. Other Parameters 

Price, packaging, shelf life, ingredients, and more were recorded here.

Price + Packaging 

A 200-gram pack holds five pieces of papad. These were placed directly inside a blue pack with no second packing or paper sheets to separate them. This is priced at ₹ 89/- and has a shelf life of six months.

Main Ingredients 

Udad dal flour, Iodised salt, Cumin (jeera), Edible vegetable oil, Sodium bicarbonate (INS500 (ii)), Asafoetida are the main ingredients.

How did we roast these papads?

Three recommended methods were suggested at the back of the pack. These were roasting over an open flame, roasting in a microwave, and deep frying.

We reviewed the papads using the first two methods. The papads take barely two minutes to roast well.

Aroma + Appearance 

These are thin papads with a substantial amount of jeera seeds on them. The most prominent aroma was that of salt and soda, but neither was overwhelming.

Taste + Texture

We loved how crisp the papads were, in both roasting methods. To add to this, the papads retained their crunch until lunch time, which was approximately two hours post-roasting. The cumin seeds added a nice bite to this meal accompaniment. Thumbs up!

As for the flavor, this was fresh and the salt was apt. The soda, a basic substance in nature, naturally has a bitter taste. It’s common for most commercially made packaged papads to have an extremely pronounced soda flavor which can be unpleasant. Although we could clearly taste the soda, it was not to the point where it ruined the taste.

Here are some interesting FAQs on Balasa Jeera Masala Papad

Fresh and crisp, Balasa Jeera Masala Papad simply won our hearts. While these taste delicious, the fact that the crispness was retained for hours after being roasted was a delightful surprise. You must try these.

Sabudana Papad, Rice Papad, or Udad Dal Papad, what do you like best?

Our reviews are unbiased and all samples used during the reviews were paid for by us. Read our entire ethics statement here.