Jaggery (Bella, Gur)

What is jaggery?

Jaggery is an unrefined sweetener made by boiling sugarcane juice until it thickens and sets. Nothing is separated out along the way, so the molasses stays in. That is what gives jaggery its brown colour and caramel taste.

It is called bella in Kannada, gur in Hindi, bellam in Telugu and vellam in Tamil. Jaggery can also be made from palm sap, which is sold as palm jaggery.

Types and forms of jaggery

Jaggery powder (bella pudi): loose, free-flowing jaggery that measures and dissolves like sugar. It suits tea, coffee, payasa and everyday cooking.

Jaggery square (achchu bella): jaggery set in moulds. Achchu means mould in Kannada. Grate, chop or melt it before use.

Bucket jaggery: jaggery set in a large bucket-shaped mould and sold in pieces.

Liquid jaggery (joni bella): sugarcane juice boiled down to a thick, pourable syrup and taken off the heat before it would set.

Palm jaggery (karupatti, tati bellam): made from the sap of palm trees, not from sugarcane. It is darker, with a stronger, earthier taste.

How jaggery is made

Sugarcane is crushed to press out the juice. The juice is strained and boiled in wide, open pans. As it boils, the scum that rises to the top is skimmed off and the juice thickens into a syrup.

For liquid jaggery, boiling stops while the syrup is still pourable. For blocks, the thick syrup is poured into moulds and left to set. For powder, it is stirred as it cools so that it breaks into grains.

Palm jaggery is made the same way, starting with palm sap in place of cane juice.

Jaggery and sugar in cooking

Both jaggery and white sugar start as sugarcane juice. For white sugar the juice is refined: the molasses is spun out and the crystals are washed until they are white. Jaggery skips that step and keeps the molasses. Both are sugars.

In the kitchen, sugar adds sweetness and little else. Jaggery also adds colour, a caramel flavour and some moisture, so a sweet made with jaggery comes out darker and softer.

Jaggery can curdle hot milk. For payasa and kheer, take the milk off the boil before stirring in the jaggery, or add it as a cooled syrup.

How to use jaggery

For sweets such as holige, payasa, ladoo and chikki, melt jaggery in a little water, strain it, and then cook it to the stage the recipe asks for.

A small piece of jaggery in sambar, rasam, bisi bele bath or gojju rounds off the sourness of tamarind and the heat of chilli.

Jaggery powder and liquid jaggery stir straight into tea, coffee, ragi malt and porridge. The recipes below give exact quantities.

How to choose and store jaggery

Jaggery ranges from golden to dark brown. The colour depends on the cane, how long the juice was boiled, and whether anything was added to lighten it. Read the ingredient list on the pack and choose the form that suits how you cook.

Store jaggery in an airtight container in a cool, dry place, and use a dry spoon or knife. Moisture makes it sticky. If a block hardens, grate it or warm it gently. If liquid jaggery thickens, warm the jar gently to loosen it.