Sattu is flour made from roasted grain, today usually roasted Bengal gram (chana), and in Bihar it is eaten as a cold drink, a litti filling and a no-cook meal. Its name comes from the Sanskrit saktu, a parched-grain meal (especially barley) recorded since the Ṛgveda. Chana sattu gives an estimated 22.5–23 g protein per 100 g, a little more than besan because roasting removes water.
- Sattu is already cooked by roasting, so it can be stirred into water and eaten straight away. Besan is raw and must be cooked.
- The Charaka Samhita (Sūtrasthāna 27.263) describes saktu taken as a drink as nourishing and strengthening "at once", and also as drying, which is why it is traditionally taken with plenty of water.
- Chana sattu is naturally gluten-free; barley or wheat sattu is not.
Updated 23 October 2026 · Data: IFCT 2017 (ICMR-NIN), ICMR-NIN RDA 2020, Charaka Samhita, Turner's Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Aryan Languages, CFTRI and ICAR-CIPHET studies
In this article
- What is sattu?
- Sattu history: from Vedic saktu to Bihar's sattu
- Saktu in the Charaka Samhita
- Sattu in Bihar: litti, sattu ghol and the field lunch
- Sattu nutrition per 100 g, compared with besan, chana and barley
- What roasting changes
- How to use sattu: sharbat, litti, paratha and more
- Frequently asked questions
Sattu is the roasted-gram flour of Bihar, and one of India's oldest convenience foods. A farmer could tie a little sattu in a cloth, walk to the field, and at noon stir it into water with salt and lemon. No fire, no pot, no waiting. This guide traces sattu from Sanskrit saktu to the litti stalls of Patna, and looks at what the nutrition data can and cannot tell us.
What is sattu?
Sattu (also sattu atta, sattu ka atta, satua) is grain or pulse that is dry-roasted first and ground afterwards. That order matters. Besan is ground from raw chana dal and needs cooking; sattu has been cooked by the roasting, so it is ready to eat.
In Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh today, "sattu" almost always means chana sattu, made from Bengal gram (Cicer arietinum; chana in Hindi, kadale in Kannada, kadalai in Tamil, sanagalu in Telugu, harbara in Marathi). Sattu can also be made from barley, wheat, maize or millets, or a mix of them.
South Indian kitchens know a close cousin. Hurigadale (Kannada) or pottukadalai (Tamil), the roasted, split chana used in coconut chutney, is roasted Bengal gram too. Powder it and you have something very near to chana sattu without the husk.
Sattu history: from Vedic saktu to Bihar's sattu
The word sattu descends from Sanskrit saktu. Monier-Williams' Sanskrit dictionary defines it as "coarsely ground meal, grit, groats (especially of barley-meal)" and records it as far back as the Ṛgveda [4]. In other words, for most of its history sattu was a barley food. Chana took over later, and the shift is visible in the words themselves.
R. L. Turner's Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Aryan Languages follows sáktu into almost every language of North India [3]. A few of its entries:
| Language | Word | Meaning given in the dictionary |
|---|---|---|
| Sanskrit (Ṛgveda) | sáktu | coarsely ground meal |
| Pali | sattu | barley meal |
| Prakrit | sattu | parched barley flour |
| Hindi | sattū, sātū, satuā | flour of parched grain |
| Bihari / Maithili | sattū / satuā | Maithili: flour of maize and other grain |
| Punjabi | sattū | flour of parched grain |
| Bengali | chātu | ground parched barley |
| Marathi | sātū, satvā | flour of parched grain; barley |
| Garhwali | sāttu | flour of fried barley |
Source: Turner RL, A Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Aryan Languages, entry 13070 [3]. Meanings are Turner's glosses, shortened.
Barley runs through almost every line. The same dictionary records a Bihari word, satuānī, for "a feast in which Brahmans are fed with parched barley" [3]. Further north, the idea survives almost unchanged in Tibetan tsampa, a staple meal of roasted flour, usually barley [10]. When and why the Gangetic plain moved from barley to chana is not well documented, and I will not invent a date. What we can say is that the method, roast first and grind second, stayed the same while the grain changed.
Saktu in the Charaka Samhita
The Charaka Samhita discusses saktu in its chapter on food and drink, Sūtrasthāna 27 (Annapānavidhi Adhyāya), in the section on prepared foods [5].
Saktu, the flour of roasted grain, is drying and aggravates vāta; it adds bulk to the stool and helps it move. Taken as a drink, it satisfies a person at once and gives strength at once. (Charaka Samhita, Sūtrasthāna 27.263; Gata's summary, not a direct translation.)
The next verse, 27.264, singles out saktu made from śāli rice as sweet, light and cooling. Earlier in the same section, verse 27.256 describes lāja-saktu, flour of parched paddy, as astringent, sweet, cooling and light [5].
Two words stand out. The text says pītāḥ, "drunk": saktu was mixed with liquid, as Bihar still takes it. And it calls saktu rūkṣa, drying, which fits the custom of thinning sattu generously with water, buttermilk or milk. A Puranic rule recorded in Wisdom Library's index even counts saktu among foods not to be eaten at night [4]. These are cultural and classical observations, not medical prescriptions.
Sattu in Bihar: litti, sattu ghol and the field lunch
Sattu's modern heartland is Bihar and its neighbours. The National Virtual Library of India's page on Bihari cuisine describes litti as a wheat-dough ball stuffed with sattu, spices, onion, ginger, garlic, lime juice, carom seeds and herbs, roasted over cow-dung cakes, wood or coal and tossed in ghee, then eaten with chokha, a mash of brinjal, potato and tomato [9]. The same page notes a belief that litti emerged in Magadha, the ancient kingdom of south Bihar, and that it was long a peasant food because it needed no expensive ingredients.
The other great sattu dish needs no fire at all: sattu ghol or sattu sharbat, sattu whisked into cold water, savoury with salt and lemon or sweet with jaggery.
Sattu nutrition per 100 g, compared with besan, chana and barley
India's food composition tables, IFCT 2017 from ICMR-NIN, do not list sattu. They do list its raw ingredients, so the fairest approach is to start there and adjust for roasting, which mostly removes water. The estimate below takes Bengal gram dal at its measured 9.2% moisture and recalculates it at about 4%, typical of a dry roasted flour.
| Per 100 g | Chana sattu* | Besan | Whole kala chana | Barley (raw) | Wheat atta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | ≈ 348 kcal | 329 kcal | 287 kcal | 316 kcal | 320 kcal |
| Protein | ≈ 22.8 g | 21.6 g | 18.8 g | 10.9 g | 10.6 g |
| Total dietary fibre | ≈ 16.0 g | 15.2 g | 25.2 g | 15.6 g | 11.4 g |
| Fat | ≈ 5.6 g | 5.3 g | 5.1 g | 1.3 g | 1.5 g |
| Iron | ≈ 6.4 mg | 6.1 mg | 6.8 mg | 1.6 mg | 4.1 mg |
| Calcium | ≈ 49 mg | 46 mg | 150 mg | 29 mg | 31 mg |
| Magnesium | ≈ 125 mg | 118 mg | 160 mg | 49 mg | 125 mg |
Source: IFCT 2017, ICMR-NIN [1], food codes B001 Bengal gram, dal (besan); B002 Bengal gram, whole; A004 barley; A019 wheat flour, atta. Energy converted from kJ (1 kcal = 4.184 kJ). *IFCT has no sattu entry: the chana sattu column is Gata's estimate, recalculated from B001 at 4% moisture instead of 9.2%. Sattu milled with part of the husk will sit between the "besan" and "whole kala chana" columns, with more fibre and calcium and a little less protein.
The picture is simple. Chana sattu carries roughly twice the protein of barley or wheat flour, so the move from barley saktu to chana sattu made the food far more protein-dense. The husk matters too: whole chana has three times the calcium of dehusked dal, so a darker, husk-rich sattu is a different food from a pale one. One measured sample bears this out. ICAR-CIPHET analysed a plain Bengal gram sattu at 69.5 mg calcium and 10.2 mg iron per 100 g, with protein digestibility of 80.6% [7], higher in both minerals than our dehusked estimate. Brands and batches differ, so read your pack.
Sattu in everyday portions
Two heaped tablespoons, about 20 g, make one glass of sattu sharbat. A litti or a sattu paratha uses more.
| Sattu | Energy | Protein | Fibre | % of daily protein (man / woman) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 g (one glass of sharbat) | 70 kcal | 4.6 g | 3.2 g | 8% / 10% |
| 30 g (a thick glass) | 104 kcal | 6.8 g | 4.8 g | 13% / 15% |
| 50 g (filling for two parathas) | 174 kcal | 11.4 g | 8.0 g | 21% / 25% |
Calculated by Gata from the chana sattu estimate in Table 2 (IFCT 2017 code B001 adjusted to 4% moisture) [1]; excludes jaggery, milk, oil or ghee. Daily protein from ICMR-NIN 2020: 0.83 g/kg/day, about 54 g for a 65 kg man and 46 g for a 55 kg woman [2].
What roasting changes
Roasting does more than remove water. Under a scanning electron microscope, CFTRI researchers in Mysuru saw that raw grains were tightly packed, while roasting opened "a large number of air spaces" in the chickpea cotyledon [6]. That loosened structure is part of why sattu mixes so easily into water.
Laboratory studies also suggest roasting can make pulse protein easier to digest. A Canadian study that roasted chickpea, lentil, navy bean and pea seeds found that in vitro protein digestibility generally increased, while flour solubility fell [8]. In a Turkish-Italian study, breads made with roasted chickpea flour showed the highest in vitro protein digestibility of the flours tested [11]. These are test-tube results, not human trials, so read them as early evidence.
The same Canadian study found that roasting increased rapidly digestible starch [8]. On blood sugar, the CFTRI team reported glycaemic index values in the medium range for their sattu mixes: 60 for the chickpea-based mix and 56–58 for wheat- and maize-based versions [6]. These were formulated mixes in a single study, not plain sattu, so treat the figures as a rough guide. If you manage diabetes, ask your doctor or dietitian how sattu fits your plan.
How to use sattu: sharbat, litti, paratha and more
- Sattu sharbat (sattu ghol): whisk 2 heaped tablespoons of sattu into a glass of cold water with kala namak, roasted cumin, lemon and green chilli, or with jaggery for a sweet version. Stir before each sip; sattu settles.
- Litti and sattu paratha: mix sattu with a little mustard oil, ajwain, nigella seeds, garlic, ginger, green chilli, lemon and coriander until it holds when pressed. Stuff into wheat dough and roast or cook on a tawa with ghee.
- Sattu laddoo: warm sattu briefly in ghee, then bind with jaggery and cardamom.
- Barley sattu, the old way: for a taste of classical saktu, dry-roast barley flour in a heavy pan on low heat until it smells nutty and darkens a shade. Remember that barley contains gluten.
Store sattu airtight in a cool, dry place. Roasted flours contain some fat and can turn stale; ICAR-CIPHET found free fatty acids in sattu rose slowly over six months of storage, though the drink stayed acceptable [7]. Buy in amounts you will finish within a few months.
From the Dhatu pantry
- Organic Sattu (Chana Sattu Atta): dry-roasted Bengal gram, stone-milled, ready to drink
- Organic Fried Gram (Hurigadale): the roasted chana of South Indian chutneys
- Barley Flour (Jau Atta): roast it at home for old-style barley saktu
- Organic Besan: raw chana flour for chilla, kadhi and dhokla
- Besan protein per 100 g, with a sattu and roasted chana comparison
- Protein per 100 g in Indian dals, millets and seeds
Frequently asked questions
What is sattu made of?
Sattu is flour made from grain or pulse that is dry-roasted before grinding. In Bihar it is usually roasted Bengal gram (chana sattu), but sattu can also be made from barley, wheat, maize or millets.
What is the difference between sattu and besan?
Both usually come from chana, but sattu is ground from roasted gram and can be eaten without cooking, while besan is ground from raw chana dal and must be cooked. Sattu also has slightly more protein per 100 g because roasting removes water.
How much protein is in 100 g of sattu?
Chana sattu has an estimated 22.5–23 g protein per 100 g, based on IFCT 2017 values for Bengal gram dal adjusted for roasting. Barley sattu has about half that.
Is sattu gluten-free?
Pure chana sattu is naturally gluten-free. Sattu made from barley or wheat, or a mix containing them, has gluten, so people with coeliac disease should check the ingredients and how it was packed.
How do you drink sattu?
Whisk about 2 heaped tablespoons of sattu into a glass of cold water with salt, roasted cumin and lemon, or with jaggery for a sweet version. Stir before each sip, because sattu settles.
What is sattu called in Sanskrit?
Sattu comes from the Sanskrit word saktu, meaning coarsely ground meal of parched grain, especially barley. The word appears in the Ṛgveda, and the Charaka Samhita discusses saktu in Sūtrasthāna 27.
Is sattu cooked or raw?
Sattu is cooked: the grain is dry-roasted before it is ground, so it can be mixed into water or milk and eaten straight away. Besan, by contrast, is raw.
Sattu asks almost nothing of us at the moment of eating: no fire, no vessel but a glass, no time but the stirring. The work was done earlier, at the roasting pan, and stored in the flour. That is a wisdom we have nearly forgotten: cooking ahead, so that the hungry hour is easy. The word has walked some three thousand years, from a Vedic barley meal to a Patna roadside stall, changing its grain without changing its idea. Perhaps the lesson is not that one grain is better than another, but that a simple method, roast first and grind second, can carry nourishment across centuries if we keep teaching it.
This article is for general information and is not medical or dietary advice. If you have coeliac disease, diabetes, kidney disease or another medical condition, speak to a doctor or registered dietitian before changing your diet.
References
- Longvah T, Ananthan R, Bhaskarachary K, Venkaiah K. Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR), Hyderabad. Food codes A004, A019, B001, B002. nin.res.in (PDF)
- ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition. A Brief Note on Nutrient Requirements for Indians, the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) and the Estimated Average Requirements (EAR), 2020. nin.res.in (PDF)
- Turner RL. A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages. London: Oxford University Press, 1962–1966. Entries 13070 (sáktu) and 13071 (*saktudāna), p. 756. Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago. dsal.uchicago.edu
- Monier-Williams M. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), entry "saktu", and Puranic index entry citing Matsya Purāṇa 131.43, via Wisdom Library. wisdomlib.org
- Charaka Samhita, Sūtrasthāna 27 (Annapānavidhi Adhyāya), verses 256, 263 and 264. Sanskrit text and English translation, Charaka Samhita Online. carakasamhitaonline.com
- Shakeb M, Dharanya EK, Pandey S. Standardization and quality profile of sattu mix. J Food Sci Technol. 2022;59(7):2584–2598. PubMed 35734118 · doi:10.1007/s13197-021-05277-0
- Mridula D, Jain R, Singh KK. Effect of storage on quality of fortified Bengal gram sattu. J Food Sci Technol. 2010;47(1):119–123. PubMed 23572613 · doi:10.1007/s13197-010-0006-4
- Stone AK, Parolia S, House JD, Wang N, Nickerson MT. Effect of roasting pulse seeds at different tempering moisture on the flour functional properties and nutritional quality. Food Res Int. 2021;147:110489. PubMed 34399485 · doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2021.110489
- National Virtual Library of India. Cuisine of Bihar: Litti and Chokha. nvli.in
- Wikipedia. Tsampa. Accessed 23 October 2026. en.wikipedia.org
- Kahraman G, Harsa S, Casiraghi MC, Lucisano M, Cappa C. Impact of raw, roasted and dehulled chickpea flours on technological and nutritional characteristics of gluten-free bread. Foods. 2022;11(2):199. PubMed 35053930 · doi:10.3390/foods11020199
