Cheesy Masala Pav is a delicious and mouth-watering snack recipe. It is famous street food in Mumbai city of Maharashtra as a chaat.


This recipe is spicy in taste and consists of sweetness, spiciness, and tanginess. It has a load of delicious cheesy sauce.  It also contains the nutrition of vegetables, and thus this snack has everything you can ask for.

Cheesy Masala Pav is a recipe for soft Indian bread that also consists of cooked vegetables and spices.  It is to serve with crunchy sev and spicy and tangy chutneys.

Moreover, sometimes the mash of vegetables is put in the middle of the pav, similar to a vada pav. But here, we have instead cut the pav into cubes and plated it with the vegetables.

There is no specific time of the day to have this lip-smacking and stomach-filling snack. This food is rich in creamy cheese sauce, and butter-adorned pav.

The sweet and savory tastes of your chutneys offer an incredible burst of flavors in your mouth. And the crunchiness of sev and sprinkled chopped onion is just the perfect addition.

It is an excellent recipe to have on your party menu along with beverages. Or you can even have it as a chai-time snack with ginger tea. A perfect combo! Maybe, you can even manage it in your tiffin box.

Surat Style Masala Pav

It may come as a surprise that Surat too offers its own version of this masala pav. This dish is too popularized with Mumbai in its name; maybe, therefore, not many know about the Surati version of this dish.

If we think about it more, then this dish lies somewhere between a Pav Bhaji and Dabeli, isn’t so? And hence, the Mumbai version resembles pav bhaji more and the Surat version inclines towards Dabeli. Well, that makes sense!

Apart from the look, if we pay attention to the ingredients, then the Mumbai version has pav bhaji ingredients. Likewise, the Surat version has more Dabeli ingredients, which are potato with mustard seeds tempering, garlic, and coriander. The pav is filled with tamarind chutney, chopped onions, roasted peanuts, sev, and additionally Dal Moth with the potato filling.

You will find it selling at a shop in Heerabaug, Varacha. It is also known as a Khakhi pav.

Serving Suggestions:

Now, there are two ways of serving this dish. One way is how we have done it. It is easier to eat using a fork and hence people sometimes prefer this.

Another way to serve this is by coating the pav with masala from all sides. To do that, first, make room on the Pan/Tawa for the pav by siding the masala. Add a little bit of butter and roast the pav a little bit in that butter. Then coat the pav with the masala properly. Also, add some lemon juice to it.

Whichever way you choose, make sure to quickly remove the pav from the heat. We just need to coat the pav with masala properly and prevent it to turn soggy. Or you can simply cut the pav and fill it with this masala as you do in Dabeli or Vadapav.

Tips For Cheesy Masala Pav:

  • Usually, people add mashed potatoes as well. But we skip that. Or else, it will be more like pav bhaji.
  • Do not overcook the ingredients as it will turn them mushy. Leave a little crunch.
  • You can grate the cheese over the masala pav instead of making this sauce. Or you can skip it. Totally up to you.
  • Grated beetroot can also be added to the masala while cooking, or any other vegetable you think will be good.
  • Garlic can be added with the red chillies to make the paste and you can skip ginger-garlic paste. It will also give a nice colour.
  • You can add a bit of garam masala to this red chillies and garlic paste too. If you don’t have dry red chillies then use Kashmiri red chilli powder and chopped ginger-garlic. For extra spice, add chopped green chillies.
  • If you make the above red paste, leave a little bit of the portion for adding to the pav while you are getting it coated.

Please look at our other delicious snack recipes like Fried Potatoes With White Sauce and Maggi Bhajiya.