Lightly toast your oats and gather all of your ingredients

Grind almonds, coconut, oats, and spices to a dry sand consistency

Add ghee, honey, and dates to the almond/oat/coconut mixture

Grind thoroughly until mixture sticks in big clumps. Add 1-2 dates at a time and grind very well until the consistency is right. Then roll into balls with clean, dry hands.

Ladoos–Almond Coconut

Ladoos are round-shaped sweets in India. This recipe is filled with ingredients that build ojas—vitality, immunity, resilience—that supports and stabilizes the body and mind. The spices support digestion of the heavier ojas-building ingredients. Ladoos are great to provide energy and to help balance vata for pregnancy, postpartum, kids, athletes, and travel. Those with high kapha, low agni, or high ama should avoid or eat these sparingly until your imbalances are resolved.

This tasty version includes almonds, coconut, and honey. This was adapted from a recipe by Kaya Mindlin.

Grind in a food processor to a dry sand consistency:

  • 1 cup whole, raw almonds (or try sunflower seeds or cashews)

  • 1 cup shredded coconut

  • 1 cup toasted rolled oats (toasted on a cookie sheet in the oven or toaster oven, or in an iron skillet on the stove top, until slightly browned/aromatic). Toasting makes oats lighter and easier to digest

  • 1 tsp fresh ground cardamom

  • 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

  • 1/2 tsp dried ginger powder

  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

  • 1/4 tsp of rock salt

Add in and process:

  • About 9-14 medjool dates, pitted and chopped (start with 9 and grind really well into the mixture before adding 1 at a time as needed until consistency is right)

  • 1 TB ghee or coconut oil

  • 1 TB raw honey or maple syrup

When this mixture forms a dough that starts to stick together in big clumps in the food processor, you have the right consistency. You want it to be a dough that can shape into balls but isn't overly sticky.

Wash hands thoroughly, then form dough into round balls, and store covered in fridge for up to a week. They'll be quite soft at first until they firm up a bit in the fridge.

Tips:

  • Fans of coconut can try rolling the balls in a little extra shredded coconut.

  • One of my favorite places to get spices is Burlap & Barrel. I used their Royal Cinnamon, Buffalo Ginger, and Cloud Forest Cardamom in the batch pictured here.

  • You can use store-bought ghee or make your own. See my ghee recipe for more info.

  • Ghee and honey in equal proportions by weight is considered a bad food combination in Ayurveda. Keeping them the same volume (e.g. 1 tablespoon each) is safe.

  • Always use raw honey, as cooked honey can produce ama in the body.