Indian Thali & Platter Roundup – delicious, comforting, easy-to-customize vegetarian Indian thalis and platters that are perfect for all.
Thali means plate, but when we say Indian thali, it means Indian style meal plate with various dishes. In Tamil, we call the full meals as sapadu, and I am sure every state has its regional names for the thali and exclusive dishes.
A couple of years ago, I had shared Gujarati thali, Kerala Sadya meal, Ugadi platter, and Andhra meals/bhojanam. But this time, I share some simple thali or platters or combos that I regularly make at home. Except for the ingredient-based theme and festival spread, the rest all combos are a regular fare in our household.
Indian Thali
Preparing Indian thalis are not super tricky as you think. You can make an elaborate thali with just one ingredient like how I made my zucchini platter, or you can make elaborate spread like the festival ones or simple weekend meals like parathas or with rice and roti.
Plain steamed rice with dal and roti and sabzi makes an elaborate meal in my opinion. Being a South Indian, I can’t ignore rice with kuzhambu, rasam, dry curry, and papad as well. These are comforting meals. And when we are hosting our friends, I make one or two dishes extra, and that’s about it.
I usually plan my menu (except for the festive ones) based on the-
- Groceries that I have in hand
- The time that I have to prepare
- Of course, what our family likes and based on our comforting food options. We love to explore different cuisine, so I try a new recipe during the weekend but make sure I have one dish that everyone loves.
I have shared the ones that we love and enjoy here. I hope you can draw some inspiration from these thalis and try a few combos.
Week 1 | South Indian Full Meals Thali
The first week, I shared some simple weekend thali that I usually make. It is a Tamil/Kannada cuisine combo with sambar/kuzhambu, rasam, kootu, poriyal combo. And here are the four thalis that I shared.
Week 2 | Paratha Platters
I usually make parathas for our weekend brunch with a side salad and a drink, which I shared during the second week. Here are some assorted paratha platters.
Week 3 | Festive Special South Indian Lunch Menu
For the third week, I chose festive special thali and picked the not-so-known festivals and shared the food we usually make at our home. And here they are.
- Festive Special South Indian Lunch Menu | Amavasya Lunch Menu
- Thiruvathirai Special Lunch Menu
- Festive Special South Indian Lunch Menu | Garuda Panchami Lunch Menu
- Aadi Perukku Lunch Menu | Aadi 18 Recipes
- Gowri Habba Special Lunch Menu | Festive Special Lunch Menu
- South Indian Festive Special Lunch Menu | Vinayaka Chaturthi Thali
Week 4 | Ingredient-Based Platter
For the fourth week, I picked six ingredients and shared some exciting recipes that you can make with them. I picked quinoa, poha, ragi flour, rolled oats, bread, and zucchini as my ingredients and shared some platters with them.
Week 5 | Biryani and Pulao Platters
And for the last week, I picked biryani and pulao platters as my theme and shared two pulao platters and two biryani platters.
PS – If you try any of these thali/platter combos, please don’t forget to comment and rate this recipe. If you have any questions, please leave a comment, and I will get to it asap. Make sure to follow me on my Pinterest for more healthy and delicious ideas! Follow me on Instagram or join my Facebook Group for more gardening and recipe updates.
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Vidhya absolutely enjoyed doing the mega marathon with you and so much informative and exotic thalis you presented. That reflects in your round up. Loved your festive thalis which are very unique and ingredient based platters were so healthy.
Thanks :-) Same here and I enjoyed your posts as well.
Loved doing this BM with you and loved reading all your thalis and platter post and how you came up with each and everything. Liked your unique recipe based platters a lot and the festive thalis. Lovely collection of recipes.
Thanks so much Renu.
Srividhya , this is Vaishali – wonder why Vaibhavi came up ☹️ In the previous comment .
No worries. Some auto correct issues may be. :-)
I have enjoyed all your thalis , they are very well thought of and executed . Your Festival Thalis are absolutely unique , I will come back again to read them all over again , they have a lot of information .
The idea of doing one ingredient ones is very interesting too ,
Actually all of them are classic ones and I don’t really know when I will be able to cook some of them , but yes whenever I do , I will bug you with lot of questions ☺️
Super cool round up !
Thanks a lot. :-)
A lovely round up Srividhya. I have gone through every post within hours of your posting and the excitement is infectious, won’t you say? It was a pleasure to run the marathon with you.
Thanks a lot, Harini. I am glad you liked it and thanks for all your amazing comments.
The whole roundup looks so fantastic when you have combined it together. It looks like you had this final post in mind and had clicked the pictures as all the posts blend so well Srividhya, excellent roundup, not to mention how useful this post is, having everything at one place!..I totally enjoyed everything.
Thanks so much, Valli. I kind of had same set of plating for each theme but in the end, it didn’t go as planned but I am happy with the outcome. Thanks much for organizing this marathon.