The crispy Bitter Melon Recipe will be your favorite vegetable dish if you like light and bitter vegetable stir fries!
A few spices make this bitter melon recipe flavorful and not overpowering bitter.
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What is Bitter Melon?
Bitter Melon is a very bitter vegetable. No other vegetable compares to the bitter melon in terms of bitterness.
The Indian Bitter Melon and the Japanese Bitter Melon are the most common varieties mentioned.
Bitter Melon is a gourd, which grows on a vine mostly in warm tropical and subtropical parts of the world. The plant originated in India and was introduced to China some 700 years ago.
Later on, the bitter melon was popularized all over the world, as it is known to have a positive effect on people who suffer from diabetes.
Pregnant women should stay away from consuming bitter melons, as it can cause miscarriages.
Tips to reduce Bitterness
To make this bitter melon recipe successfully, you would first want to reduce the bitterness.
Follow these useful tips (I wish I had known those when I tried cooking bitter melon for the first time!!)
- you can blanch the bitter melon first before cooking it further. So, keep a small saucepan ready some cooking water, place your bitter melon (preferably cut) and just leave it in the cooking water for less than a minute. That will take out some of the excess bitterness.
- you can add sweetening agents such as brown sugar or palm sugar (Jaggery) to cover up some of the bitterness
- you can add a certain combination of spices and seasonings to turn the bitter gourd recipe into something quite delicious
- you can fry it crispy, as this seems to make the vegetable a bit less bitter for this so-called Karela recipe.
I, personally, fell in love with this spiced bitter melon recipe, cooked by my husband's family restaurant chef. The chef is originally from a poor village in Bihar/North India.
He really has a hand and eye for food, the passion is recognizable in each dish he plates up.
He was excited too when I ask him if he could show and share with us his Bitter Melon Recipe.
📖 Recipe
Crispy Bitter Melon Recipe
Ingredients
To Fry:
- 2 Piece Bitter Melons medium sized fresh
- 3 Tablespoons Oil
- 1 Onion sliced
- 2 Pieces Garlic Cloves
- 1 Tomato sliced
- 2.5 Ounces Coconut Raw Freshly Shredded
- 1 Teaspoon Garam Masala
- ½ Teaspoon Turmeric Ground
- ½ Teaspoon Cumin Seeds Ground
- ¼ Teaspoon Red Chili Pepper or Cayenne
- 1 Teaspoon Coriander Seeds Ground
- 1 ½ Tablespoon Sugar Molasses
- Pinch Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Cilantro Fresh fresh chopped, aka Coriander leaves
Instructions
- Start by cutting off the ends of the bitter melon and slice it lengthwise so that you can remove and discard the seed core of the fruit.
- If you want to reduce the bitterness to a minimum, then blanch them by keeping the slices for 2–3 minutes in boiling water and afterward cool them in ice water (drain water well).
- In a frying pan heat 2 Tbs (of the 3 mentioned in the ingredients) oil and add the bitter melon slices, stir-fry on high heat for 3-5 min.
- Take out from the pan, shake off excess oil and keep aside.
- Cut the Onion, Tomato, chop the Garlic and Coriander and keep the freshly scraped Coconut ready, as mentioned in the ingredients.
- Take a clean frying pan and fry the Onion translucent and throw in the garlic and tomato, frying for a while.
- Now add the shredded Coconut and stir-fry until the color changes to a golden brown and add minimal amount of water so that it doesn't stick to the pan from now on.
- Thereafter, you can add the bitter melon slices and the Garam masala, Turmeric powder, Cumin Powder, Chili powder, Coriander powder, Sugar, Salt, chopped Cilantro/Coriander leaves and stir-fry for another 2–3 minutes.
- Finished! You just cooked your first Bitter Melon dish. You can garnish (optional) with chaat masala seasoning or black rock salt, more fresh cilantro/coriander leaves and serve hot as a side dish. See serving suggestions in the post.
Notes
Nutrition
Serving Ideas
Serve the Bitter Melon Recipe as a side dish to other meals. Usually, stir-fried bitter melon goes really well with a coconut curry over rice.
Use it the way you would use other vegetables, but in a smaller portion. Bitter Melon is supposed to be enjoyed in small quantities only.
Just the way you would eat a radish salad or horseradish because the bitterness can be quite a lot.
Serving the bitter melon with other meals makes a complete, balanced meal.
Helene: You should ask a good goan cook to prepare you a " Carantim Recheado". Short description of the technique : Green bitter gourds (before getting ripe) are boiled without slicing , in water and a ted of salt.. Then a slit is made to remove the interior contents as well the spicules are paired with a sharp knife. Then the boiled and cleaned bitter gourd is dried on a towel. Next a recheado (filling) is prepared with curried shrimp mince. The slit and filled bitter gourd is tied with thread and then fried.
Carlos that's interesting. I don't think these stuffed bitter melons are still made in Goan homes. I suspect this is a recipe from the north? I have not seen this in any book which makes me think most probably it's an almost forgotten dish or otherwise the so-called Goan recipe book authors would have copied it from each other by now and published it. I will ask around, it sounds like a delicious idea to stuff bitter melon with recheado paste, just like the stuffed okra with recheado paste. Thank you for sharing Carlos, you always have good knowledge of things.
Karela (Bitter Gourd) is a day to day vegetable we use at home. Nice reading your article mentioning it’s variations. We deep fry it’s cut pieces for curry purposes and have it’s cut pieces steam cooked for sambar. It is one of the best natural treatment for sugar patients.
Oh lovely! I would enjoy eating your version of deep fried karela or steam cooked in a sambar. Bitter melon is definitely a useful vegetable that promotes health. Another reason to add this gorgeous vegetable to our diet. Thanks for sharing your way of preparing bitter melon. 🙂
Just made this, and I love it! I have cooked the Goya bitter melon a lot. They are less spicy, and a bit less bitter than these. But saw these in the local market and thought this time I would try this kind.
Thank you for posting this recipe.
Hi Mary, thank you for your feedback. Happy to read that you enjoyed the recipe. 🙂
this is a great recipe, thank you. if you don't like bitter gourd you still won't like it, but if you like it this is heavenly.
Very true! thanks for your comment!
Oooh I have seen this at the grocery store but I have never ever cooked with it!!!
Would be interested to give this a go!
The bitter melon is also called "goya" in Japan. "Nigauri" , the other name in Japan, means "bitter melon". It is most popular in Okinawan cooking but for the 10 years it has become popular in planters as a provider of lots green shade in front of sunny windows in the summer. So people all over Japan are growing it and eating it in stir fries, mostly.
I would love to make this veggie Indian style. Your recipe looks wonderful.
Hi Pamela, Thanks for sharing all the useful info! I never thought that the bitter melon vine could be used as something that can give window shade. So that means bitter melon must be growing well indoors. How do the people in Okinawa season the bitter melon stir fries? Do they add any other flavors? Do they blanch the bitter melon first or do they have another technique to reduce some of the bitterness? Somebody mentioned in a comment in this thread that there is a way to dehydrate the bitter melon and that this reduces the bitterness a lot.
This is very good news to me and my family, I am interested to test it, though I am not sure to find one in my local market.
thanks for the information.
Well, if you ever see one in your local market then you will recognize it and know how to use it at least. =)
Hi Reva!
First time I hear about this method. I ought to try it out myself one of these days. thanks a lot's for the notion! ^.^