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Ayurvedic medicine teaches that good health starts with balance. This ancient wisdom from India uses herbs, spices, and plants to heal your body and soul. When you know your leading dosha, your Ayurvedic body type, you can choose the right foods to feel balanced. Get some inspiration and heal from within with these nine Ayurvedic recipes..
Recipes to Balance Lively Vata
Vata Reducing Butternut Squash Soup
Vata combines the elements of air and space. According to a blog from the Chopra Treatment Center, those with this dominant dosha tend to have a lot of energy and creativity, but can easily feel restless and anxious. You can balance lively Vata with warm, moist, and earthy foods. Try this grounding recipe from The Art of Living, which combines earthy root vegetables like butternut squash and red pumpkin.
Vata Reducing Turmeric Tea
Those with excess Vata tend to feel cold and jittery. Soothe the imbalance with this Morning Turmeric Milk recipe from Hip and Healthy. This creamy latte, sometimes called “golden milk”, packs tons of healthy ingredients, rice milk with turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger, perfect for starting your day feeling balanced.
Vata Reducing Saffron Oatmeal
Enjoy a new take on this breakfast staple with a pinch of “red gold” saffron. This recipe from Ayurvalley contains oats, cashew or almond milk, and coconut oils, widely used to calm Vata energies. Plus, it’s quick and easy to make!
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Recipes to Balance Fiery Pitta
Pitta Reducing Spearmint Tea
The Pitta dosha is all about fire—high energy, hot, and powerful. According to Chopra, you should balance excess pitta with cooling foods, like cold beverages and dairy. Consume veggies like asparagus, cucumbers, potatoes, lettuce, and celery, as well as herbs like mint, rose, lavender, fennel, and chamomile. Like this tea recipe from Everyday Ayurveda, which soothes your inner fire with spearmint, oatstraw, and nettle.
Pitta Reducing Cucumber Mint Mocktail
The saying goes, stay “cool as a cucumber”. This crisp, refreshing vegetable certainly helps soothe fiery Pitta. This mocktail recipe from Yoga International offers a dose of soothing mint, cucumber, and chamomile served cold to balance Pitta.
Pitta Reducing Sweet Rose Petal Lassi
In Indian cuisine, lassis come in all kinds of flavors—mango, banana, strawberry, masala. This yogurt-based milkshake or smoothie is served cold and helps balance hot Pitta. Try this sweet rose petal lassi recipe from a blog on Mapi, which offers a unique take on the smoothie, combining rose water and yogurt.
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Recipes to Balance Cool Kapha
Kapha Reducing Mung Dal Kitchari
A Kapha Ayurvedic dosha imbalance often leads to low energy levels. It can happen when you eat foods that retain the damp, cold aspects of its elements, water and earth. Heat things up with some spice! This recipe from Joyful Belly lightens up a heavy Kapha, combining invigorating spices like ginger, cumin, cinnamon, and cloves with mung beans and rice. It’s said to stimulate circulation, energize slow digestion, and clear congestion.
Kapha Reducing Green Pea Curry With Brown Rice Crepes
You can pacify a heavy Kapha imbalance with this green bean curry recipe from Food Matters. Green split peas get spiced with rejuvenating ginger, chilies, turmeric, cilantro, and fennel. Then try your hand at homemade crepes, made with brown rice flour and rice milk.
Kapha Reducing Thai Green Vegetable Curry
This recipe from Shilpika Devaiah offers a delightful blend of Kapha reducing ingredients. The green paste packs in lots of invigorating spices, like lemongrass, shallots, ginger, cilantro, basil, fish sauce, cumin, coriander, and chilies—which all help balance Kapha. You’ll also get a dose of healthy veggies, like zucchini, mushroom, potatoes, carrots, and coconut milk.
