Vegan Almond Halwa – Instant Pot Badam Halwa with No Added Refined oil. No ghee or dairy! 5 Mins active time. 6 Ingredients! And Almond Ladoo too! Gluten-free Grain-free Soy-free Recipe. Jump to Recipe
Its that time of the year! No not Halloween, Its Diwali this weekend! All festivals and holidays seem to all come close to each other. One day I am planning bowl meals and the next I am thinking pumpkin, Indian sweets, desserts, lentil loafs.
This Diwali I bring you 3 variations of Almond Halwa! Indian Halwa can range in texture from a crumble to a set jelly like to soft spoon fudge like. You can make this halwa into any of the textures you like! If you don’t want to use the spoon, roll it up into balls for amazing almond ladoos.
Traditional Badam Halwa recipe often requires making a sugar syrup of certain consistency, then adding almonds(soaked and blended or ground) and cooking for a good number of minutes. This recipe has none of that! No standing around in the kitchen stirring stuff and no checking on the sugar to get the right syrup thread consistency.
Just mix the sugar of choice in the hot water, Add flavors such as cardamom, saffron, rose water or cinnamon. Add in almond flour (blanched works great) and pressure cook. Done and done. With pressure cooking, the sugar, water mixture thickens and the almond flour rehydrates very quickly. Did I mention, you don’t need any butter or oil as well! Ok lets make this. If you double the recipe(which you will want to), add a minute to the pressure cooking time.
Ingredients for Vegan Almond Halwa
You will need
- hot water
- sugar of choice. Use cane sugar for lighter color halwa, jaggery powder, coconut sugar, date sugar or other unrefined sugar of choice.
- a few drops of lime juice and a good pinch of salt (this adds the ghee/butter like flavor)
- Flavors: such as whole cardamom seeds, ground cardamom, ground cinnamon,or saffron strands.
- Almond flour. Use blanched almond flour for lighter colored halwa or use regular with skin almond flour. You can make you own ground almonds by blending raw almonds in a blender. The almonds may tend to get buttery, which is ok. or add a tbsp starch to ensure more flour like result.
First Picture uses 3 tbsp water, whole cardamom seeds and unrefined sugar. The picture below used cane sugar, saffron and 1/2 cup of water.
Depending on the water amount used, you will get the consistency in the first picture or the below picture. The thicker lumpy halwa in the first picture can be rolled into balls.
How to make Vegan Badam Halwa in the Instant Pot with step pictures
Mix the sugar in hot water. Add lime, salt and cardamom/other flavors and mix in.
Add almond flour and press and mix. Below is halwa with unrefined sugar, cardamom seeds and 3 tbsp water.
For thinner Halwa, use 1/2 cup water. Below is halwa with saffron,more water and cane sugar.
Add 1.5 cups water to the Instant Pot. Cover the dish with a light lid and place in the pressure cooker. Pressure cook for 5 mins. Natural release.
Scoop into serving bowls. Indian sweets are served in small amounts. So this will serve 4 in Indian serving size, or 2 regular serves.
Garnish with chopped nuts, raisins or chopped dates.
To make ladoos: Chill for half an hour, then roll into balls. Garnish with coconut, finely chopped nuts or seeds of choice.
More Indian Sweets
- Malai Ladoo GF
- Gajar Halwa- Carrot Spoon fudge GF.
- Mango Sheera / Halwa
- Mango Burfi – GF Bars
- Kesar Peda – GF Saffron almond fudge cookies
- 7 Cup Burfi – Chickpea flour coconut Fudge. GF
- Brown Rice Pudding– GF
- More Indian Sweets like Gulab jamun, Kaju Katli,Laddoos.
Savory Snacks and Meals:
- Potato Rice Crackers. GF
- Potato Quinoa Patties.
- Butter Tofu – Tofu in tomato Cream Sauce GF
- Coconut Korma GF
Can I make this with other nuts?
Yes, you can make it with cashews, pistachios or macadamia nuts. Use a coarse flour. Cashews will tend to make thicker halwa.
I don’t have almond flour, What do I use?
You can make you own ground almonds by blending raw almonds in a blender. The almonds may tend to get buttery, which is ok. or add a tbsp starch to ensure more flour like result. Or use other nut flour. You cannot substitute grain flour as grain flours absorb a lot more liquid. Similarly coconut flour will absorb a lot of liquid and will not work.
Can I make the Halwa directly in the Instant Pot
No, the almonds will burn with the direct heat.
Vegan Almond Halwa (Instant Pot Badam Halwa) Oil-free
Ingredients
- 3 to 8 tbsp water (3 Tbsp water for crumbly Halwa and for ladoos, 1/2 cup(8 tbsp) water for thin pudding like halwa, 1/3 cup water for thick halwa)
- 1/3 cup (66.67 g) sugar (cane sugar,conut sugar, or jaggery powder)
- 3 drops of lime juice
- 1/8 tsp salt
- Flavors: cardamom seeds from 4 green cardamom pods(see note), or 6 to 8 saffron strands, or 1/8 tsp cinnamon, or 1/2 tsp rose water
- 1 cup (112 g) almond flour
Instructions
- Add hot water to a baking dish or pyrex** that fits your instant pot. Add the sugar and mix in. Add the lime juice, salt and flavors(cardamom, saffron etc) and mix in. (See notes for stove top)
- Add almond flour and press and mix. With less water, you will have to press and mix so there are no dry lumps. if making the thinner halwa, use a whisk to mix in the almond flour.
- Add 1.5 cups of water to the instant pot. Place the dish in the steamer basket and lower into the instant pot. Cover with a light lid or foil.
- Close the lid and pressure cook for 5 minutes at high pressure. Let the pressure release naturally.
- Carefully remove the dish from the instant pot. Garnish with chopped nuts, raisins or chopped dates and serve.
- To make ladoos: Chill almond halwa made with 3 tbsp water, for half an hour, then roll into balls. Roll in coconut, finely chopped nuts or seeds of choice, or drizzle with chocolate for a halloween treat.
- Store: Store on the counter for the day. Refrigerate for upto 5 days.
Made the stope top version today and it came out delicious. Quick and easy. I love all your recipes!!!! They always come out perfect and yummy. Can’t wait for the instant pot cookbook!
thanks for popping in ♡ and for your support
Looks interesting, will surely try.
Awesome!! Do leave a rating too!
Tried the arove top version. Turned out better than i thought!
Thabks for the recipe. I have dairy allergies so making desserts is always challenging with fewer choices.
perfect – i’m so glad that you found me!
Was so so delicious!
thank you so much for the rave review
Love this recipe! Made it as halwa and as balls too. An easy quick sweet fix. Definitely a keeper.
oh wow, nice one. Thank you!!!
Just made this today! As a vegan the last 13 years, it’s so nice to enjoy some Badam Halwa again! It used to come as a dessert at combination platters in my favorite south Indian restaurants in NYC, it would be the only non-vegan item on those platters. Now I have it back, and with my instant pot at that! Saffron, Cardamon, 1/3rd water worked great for me. I’ll probably subtract a tablespoon or two of sugar, but frankly that’s nit picking. Thank you so much for sharing this. I found adding a tablespoon of Miyoko’s butter really sticks the landing.
Awesome! Yes some vegan butter def adds the restaurant like flavor as they usually would cook the Halwa in a boatload of clarified butter
Thank you for the recipe…came out very well..I did some modifications as I don’t use pressure cooker!
Looking forward to trying this! I don’t have a Pyrex insert for my instant pot, so I was wondering if I could make it in my regular stove top pressure cooker. Thanks in advance!
you need to cook it pot in pot. use a steel one. if you put it directly in the cooker, almond flour will burn
Really good and so easy to make! The only change I would make is reduce the sugar. This turned out too sweet for me.
I love halva, although I tried it in a different interpretation before, there are many kinds of it. By the way, I never tried to cook halva by myself. It is very interesting that this halva is almond. Before that, I only tried it made of sunflower seeds, peanuts or sesame seeds. Be sure to try this recipe, it looks quite simple to prepare. Thank you!
Thank you so much. You give me so much inspiration to cook and be oil free too!
Could I make the Israeli halva like this with ground sesame seeds?
It might work. Make a half recipe to see.
Looks wonderful. Will make it today! I’ve always loved Indian sweets, but not all the ghee.😉
🙂 Thanks!
Can it only be cooked in an Instant Pot or is it just quicker??
See notes for stove top instructions. it is faster and hands off. With the stove you have to be around so the almond doesnt burn etc.
This is great! Since going dairy free, I have been missing my fav Indian desserts. Can you please share moong dal halwa vegan recipe? Many thanks!!!
Yes, its in my to do list!
WOW this is amazing, Richa! Definitely will try this! Could you place aluminum foil over the pyrex container in lieu of a light lid?
yes you can! i forgot to add that option.
Happy Diwali Richa!
Thank you Sue!