Pakistani Winter Foods: Gajar Halwa, Sarson Saag and More

The best-loved winter food in Pakistan is sarson ka saag with makki ki roti, followed closely by gajar ka halwa, and both appear on Punjabi tables only once the cold arrives. Around them sits a whole season of warming food: nihari and paye for breakfast, battered fried fish and street-cart soup in the evenings, roasted peanuts and dry fruit by the handful, Kashmiri chai, sohan halwa and, in Gilgit-Baltistan, slow-cooked harissa. Most of it is at its best from December to February.

This guide goes dish by dish, with where in Pakistan each one is most at home, so you can plan a winter trip around what to eat.

Why does Pakistani food change in winter?

Two things drive it. The first is the harvest: mustard greens, the red winter carrot, turnips, cauliflower, fresh peas and spinach all come into the markets of Punjab in the cooler months, so the dishes built on them are seasonal by nature. The second is the cold itself. Northern Punjab, Islamabad, KP and the mountains get properly cold, and the food that families crave is heavy, slow-cooked and rich in ghee, dry fruit and jaggery.

Karachi and lower Sindh barely have a winter, so the change there is smaller. Even so, soup carts, nihari queues and dry fruit sellers do more business from December onwards across the whole country.

Sarson ka saag and makki ki roti

This is the dish most Pakistanis mean when they talk about winter food. Sarson ka saag is mustard greens, usually mixed with spinach or other leaves, cooked down slowly for hours with garlic, ginger and green chilli, then mashed and finished with ghee or butter. It is eaten with makki ki roti, a thick flatbread made from maize flour, topped with a lump of white butter, with gur (jaggery) on the side and a glass of lassi.

Mustard is harvested in winter and spring, which is why the dish appears in late autumn and disappears again by about March. Village homes across central Punjab make the best of it, but in Lahore and other cities it turns up on the winter menus of desi restaurants and roadside dhabas. If a place cooks it fresh, it will often say so on a board outside. Restaurant saag varies a great deal; a version that has clearly been cooked for hours, rather than blended and heated, is the one to order.

Gajar ka halwa and other winter sweets

Gajar ka halwa is the sweet of the season. Grated red carrots are cooked slowly in milk with sugar, cardamom and ghee, then enriched with khoya (reduced milk solids) and topped with almonds and pistachios. It is served hot, often in small clay bowls, and sweet shops in Punjab sell it by weight from about December, when the red winter carrot is in. It is also common on the dessert table at winter weddings. Gajrela, a looser, kheer-like version with rice, is its cousin.

Other sweets that mark the season:

• Pinni and panjiri. Dense mixtures of roasted wheat flour, ghee, sugar and dry fruit, made at home in Punjabi households and sold by sweet shops in winter.
• Rewri and gajak. Small sesame and jaggery sweets, eaten as a winter snack. Chakwal is the best-known name for rewri.
• Sohan halwa. The dense, ghee-rich halwa of Multan, packed in round tins. Hafiz Sohan Halwa, on Hussain Agahi Road in Multan's inner city, is the best-known brand and dates its shop to 1945. It is sold all year but is classic winter gifting. Our guide to Multani sohan halwa covers what to buy.
• Anday ka halwa. A rich egg-based halwa that some sweet shops and home cooks make only in the colder months.

Nihari, paye and the winter breakfast

Winter is when the slow-cooked breakfast dishes are busiest. Nihari, beef or mutton stewed overnight in a spiced gravy and finished with ginger, green chilli and lemon, is eaten with naan from early morning. Paye, trotters cooked for hours until the broth turns sticky, and siri paye, with the head meat added, are the Lahore favourite on cold mornings.

These are year-round dishes, but queues are longer and shops are fuller between December and February. In Lahore, the old city around Taxali Gate is the classic place for paye; in Karachi, the nihari houses around Burns Road and the city centre. Our guides to the best nihari in Pakistan and the best paye in Lahore name the shops and give timings. Halwa puri, with chanay and suji halwa, is the other weekend breakfast that feels most at home on a foggy morning.

Fried fish, soup and winter street food

Fish

In Punjab, winter is fish season. River and farmed fish is cut into pieces, coated in a spiced gram flour batter and deep-fried at stalls that set up for the cold months, especially in Lahore. It is sold by weight and eaten with chutney, radish and naan. Our Lahori fish guide explains how to tell a good stall from a tired one.

Soup

On winter evenings in Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi, carts sell chicken corn soup, thickened, peppery and served in disposable bowls with chilli sauce and vinegar. It is a cheap street snack rather than a meal, and stalls outside markets and on busy roads are busiest after dark.

Carts and snacks

• Roasted peanuts, sold hot from piles of sand heated in a large wok, by the paao (quarter kilo).
• Shakarkandi, sweet potato roasted on coals, sliced and sprinkled with chaat masala and lemon.
• Boiled eggs, sold at night by vendors calling "garam anday".
• Dry fruit: almonds, walnuts, raisins, figs and chilgoza (pine nuts), the last being the most expensive. Prices rise in the cold months as demand peaks.

Winter vegetables at the dinner table

At home, the winter menu changes with the market. Shalgam gosht (meat cooked with turnips), gobhi (cauliflower) with potatoes or meat, palak (spinach) dishes and matar pulao with fresh green peas are all winter staples in Punjabi and Urdu-speaking households. Methi (fenugreek) parathas are another seasonal favourite. These rarely make it onto restaurant menus, so the best way to eat them is at someone's home, or at a desi restaurant that advertises home-style cooking.

Kashmiri chai and other winter drinks

Kashmiri chai, also called pink chai or noon chai, is tea brewed with green tea leaves and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda, then whisked with milk until it turns pink. Traditionally it is salted, though in Punjab and Karachi it is usually served sweet, topped with crushed pistachios and almonds. It is a winter wedding favourite and is sold at tea stalls and dessert shops from autumn onwards.

Hot doodh patti, tea brewed in milk, is the everyday winter drink everywhere, and in the north, salted butter tea is drunk through the cold months.

What do people eat in winter in the north?

In Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral, winter food is about stored supplies: dried apricots, walnuts, dried meat, flour and dairy. Harissa, a slow-cooked mix of meat and wheat, is the best-known winter dish of Gilgit-Baltistan, cooked by families over long hours and rarely found on restaurant menus; our guide to harissa in Gilgit-Baltistan explains how visitors can taste it. Thick noodle soups and breads cooked with walnut or apricot oil are other winter staples.

In parts of Balochistan and the Pashtun belt, landi, mutton or goat salted and dried in the sun, is prepared to be cooked through the winter months.

Is it worth planning a trip around winter food?

For anyone who eats well, yes. A December to February visit to Lahore, Islamabad or Multan puts you in the best weeks for saag, gajar ka halwa, fish and paye, and the daytime weather on the plains is pleasant. Winter is also the main wedding season, which is the other great place to eat.

The downsides are real. Fog delays flights and closes motorways in Punjab on bad mornings, Lahore's air quality can be poor in December, and the north is cold, with many roads and hotels shut. Karachi in winter is mild and comfortable, but its food changes less with the season. If you want winter food without the fog, Islamabad and Rawalpindi are often clearer than Lahore. For other ways to build a trip around food and culture, see our experiences page.

Frequently asked questions