Suji vs Rava vs Chiroti Rava vs Bombay Rava: What's the Difference?

The difference between suji, rava, chiroti rava and Bombay rava confuses many cooks, because the same packet changes its name every few hundred kilometres. A Delhi kitchen makes suji ka halwa; a Mysuru kitchen makes uppittu from rave; a Chennai kitchen roasts ravai for upma. They are using one ingredient. What changes is the grind, and sometimes the wheat. This guide untangles the names, the history and the nutrition.

Suji vs rava: are they the same?

Yes. Suji (also spelt sooji or soji) and rava (rawa, ravva, rave, ravai) are regional names for the same product, which English calls semolina. India's food law treats them as one: the Food Safety and Standards regulations have a single standard titled "Semolina (Suji or Rawa)" [2].

The names have travelled together for a long time. Molesworth's Marathi and English Dictionary, first compiled in the nineteenth century, defines sōjī as, among other senses, "wheaten flour in fine granules; also called gavā or ravā" [7]. So the two words were already being used for the same granules more than a century and a half ago. Roughly, by region:

• Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali: suji or sooji
• Marathi: rava
• Kannada: rave (chiroti rave for the fine grind)
• Tamil: ravai or rava
• Telugu: ravva, sometimes Bombay ravva
• English: semolina, cream of wheat in North America

Types of rava: suji, Bombay rava, chiroti rava and more

Most rava labels describe either how fine the grind is or which grain it came from. A few products called rava are not wheat semolina at all.

Sources: FSSAI standard 2.4.3 [2]; Molesworth via Wisdom Library [7]; Tamil Nadu Agricultural University on samba (dicoccum) wheat [8]. Texture descriptions are trade usage, not regulated grades.

Is Bombay rava the same as suji?

Mostly, yes. "Bombay rava" is a South Indian market name for pale, medium-fine wheat semolina, which North Indian shops simply sell as suji [10]. Some references call it a durum-wheat product, but the market suji analysed for India's food tables was bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) [1]. The name tells you the grind, not the wheat.

Is chiroti rava different from suji?

Only in fineness. Chiroti rava takes its name from chiroti (also chirote or pheni), the layered, flaky fried pastry served at weddings and festivals in Maharashtra and the Bombay-Karnataka districts of north Karnataka, often drenched in sweetened milk [11]. Recipes differ: some use only maida, while many Karnataka cooks use an extra-fine rava, alone or mixed with maida, for a crisper, flakier result. The same fine grind makes rava laddoo and kesari smooth rather than grainy.

How suji rava is milled, and what FSSAI says

A wheat grain has bran (the outer skin), germ (the embryo) and endosperm (the starchy middle). Atta grinds all three. Maida removes bran and germ and grinds the endosperm to powder. Suji breaks the endosperm into granules instead.

The FSSAI standard spells this out. Semolina (suji or rawa) is "obtained from clean grains of wheat by grinding or milling processes in which the bran and germ are wholly/partially removed and the remainder is comminuted to a suitable degree of fineness" [2]. Three details in that standard are worth knowing:

• No fixed particle size. Atta must mostly pass a 500-micron sieve and maida a 212-micron sieve, but the suji standard sets no particle size at all. That is why "fine", "medium", "Bombay" and "chiroti" are trade names, not legal grades.
• Gluten is required. Suji must contain at least 6% gluten on a dry basis, with moisture no more than 14.5% and total ash no more than 1%.
• Durum semolina has its own standard. Semolina from durum wheat (Triticum durum), the hard wheat used for pasta, is covered separately, with a minimum protein of 10.5% on dry matter.

Suji and rava in old kitchens and old texts

Before roller mills, the granules came from stone. A village chakki ground the wheat, and sieving separated fine flour from coarser grits, which became their own ingredient. The habit of roasting rava before cooking has a practical logic: roasted granules stay separate when water goes in, while raw ones turn to paste.

The classical Sanskrit texts do not name suji, so be cautious of anyone who quotes a verse about it. What they do record is a fine wheat preparation. Sanskrit dictionaries gloss samitā as "wheat-flour", citing the Bhāvaprakāśa, and give sāmita as a sweet "made from or mixed with wheat-flour", citing the Suśruta Saṃhitā [6]. Whether samitā was nearer to today's maida or today's rava cannot be settled from a dictionary entry, and I will not pretend otherwise.

The Charaka Samhita does describe wheat itself. In Sūtrasthāna chapter 27 (Annapānavidhi), verse 21 places wheat among the nourishing grains [5].

Wheat calms vāta; it is sweet, cooling, unctuous and heavy, and it nourishes, strengthens and steadies the body. (Charaka Samhita, Sūtrasthāna 27.21; Gata's summary, not a direct translation.)

"Heavy" is the word to notice: in Ayurveda, a heavy food takes effort to digest. Read that way, the old methods for rava make sense: roast it, cook it in plenty of water, temper it with ginger, curry leaves and chilli, and eat it hot. These are cultural observations, not medical prescriptions.

Suji rava nutrition per 100 g, compared with maida and atta

India's food composition tables, IFCT 2017 from ICMR-NIN, analysed suji from six regions of the country. Here is how it compares with its wheat relatives.

Source: IFCT 2017, ICMR-NIN [1]. Food codes: A022 wheat, semolina; A018 wheat flour, refined; A019 wheat flour, atta; A021 wheat, bulgur (all Triticum aestivum, mean of six regions). Energy converted from kJ (1 kcal = 4.184 kJ). Bulgur is parboiled cracked wheat, the closest IFCT entry to dalia, but not identical to it.

Three things stand out. First, suji has slightly more protein than atta or maida per 100 g, partly because it holds less water (8.9 g vs 11.1 g in atta). Second, its magnesium is less than a third of atta's (38 mg vs 125 mg), a clear sign that most of the bran and germ, where wheat keeps much of its magnesium, has gone. Third, the fibre figure of 9.7 g is higher than many expect. Because FSSAI lets bran be "wholly or partially" removed, a darker, coarser suji will likely carry more bran than a very white one, so treat this as an average of market samples, not a promise for every pack.

Suji in everyday portions

A typical plate of upma uses about 50 g of dry rava; a small bowl of kesari, closer to 30 g.

Calculated by Gata from IFCT 2017 code A022 [1]; excludes ghee, vegetables, nuts or sugar added in cooking. 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 [9].

Traditional upma, with chana and urad dal in the tempering, vegetables and a side of curd, adds protein and fibre the rava alone does not.

Suji, dalia and blood sugar

Because suji and dalia are both called "rava" in some homes, they are often treated as interchangeable. On blood sugar, they may not be. A study at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation measured the glycaemic index (GI) of twelve traditional Indian dishes in healthy volunteers. Broken-wheat upma came out in the low GI range, at 51.7 [3]. The authors note that an earlier Mysuru study by Urooj and Puttaraj had reported a GI of 67 for upma made from ordinary wheat semolina, which they describe as "fibre-depleted starch endosperm" [3][4].

Two small studies from different labs and years cannot be compared head to head, and the same paper warns that "merely being a whole grain-based food does not qualify for a lower GI" [3]. The fair reading: suji is a refined wheat food, and pairing it with dal, vegetables and curd, as Indian kitchens traditionally do, is sensible. If you manage diabetes, ask your doctor or dietitian how suji fits your plan.

Which rava for which dish

• Upma or uppittu: medium suji or Bombay rava, dry-roasted until fragrant, about 1 cup rava to 2½ cups water. Bansi rava gives firmer, more separate grains.
• Kesari bath, sheera, suji halwa: either works. Chiroti rava gives a silky, melt-in-the-mouth kesari; medium suji gives a little bite.
• Rava laddoo: chiroti rava, roasted in ghee, for a fine, even texture.
• Chiroti and pheni: chiroti rava with a little maida, as many Karnataka recipes do, or maida alone.
• Rava idli and rava dosa: medium rava; fine rava makes a denser idli.
• Gluten-free versions: wheat rava always contains gluten, so use millet or rice rava instead.

Store rava airtight in a cool, dry place. Many families lightly roast a fresh pack before storing it in the monsoon.

Frequently asked questions

This article is for general information and is not medical or dietary advice. If you have coeliac disease, diabetes or another medical condition, speak to a doctor or registered dietitian before changing your diet.

References

1. Longvah T, Ananthan R, Bhaskarachary K, Venkaiah K. Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR), Hyderabad. Food codes A018, A019, A021, A022. nin.res.in (PDF)
2. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011, Chapter 2.4: Cereals and cereal products, standards 2.4.1 (Atta), 2.4.2 (Maida), 2.4.3 (Semolina, suji or rawa) and 2.4.23 (Durum wheat semolina). Version 4, 7 May 2025. fssai.gov.in (PDF)
3. Shobana S, Geetha G, Bai MR, et al. Carbohydrate profiling & glycaemic indices of selected traditional Indian foods. Indian J Med Res. 2022;155(1):56–65. PubMed 35859429 · doi:10.4103/ijmr.IJMR_1935_19
4. Urooj A, Puttaraj S. Glycaemic responses to cereal-based Indian food preparations in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and normal subjects. Br J Nutr. 2000;83(5):483–488. PubMed 10953672 (semolina upma GI of 67 as reported in reference 3)
5. Charaka Samhita, Sūtrasthāna 27 (Annapānavidhi Adhyāya), verse 21. Sanskrit text and English translation, Charaka Samhita Online. carakasamhitaonline.com
6. Monier-Williams M. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), entries "samitā" (citing Bhāvaprakāśa) and "sāmita" (citing Suśruta), via Wisdom Library. wisdomlib.org
7. Molesworth JT. A Dictionary, Marathi and English, entry "sōjī", via Wisdom Library. wisdomlib.org
8. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. Natural farming in dicoccum (Samba) wheat. TNAU press note, 2023. agritech.tnau.ac.in (PDF)
9. 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)
10. Wikipedia. Bombay rava. Accessed 16 October 2026. en.wikipedia.org
11. Wikipedia. Chirote. Accessed 16 October 2026. en.wikipedia.org