Fenugreek is a weight loss aid, helps with diabetes, and is good for heart health and breastfeeding mums – why you need this superfood in your diet

Traditional Indian and Chinese medicine has long used fenugreek, and it’s known for lowering blood sugar, boosting testosterone, easing inflammation and more

Nutritionists swear by fenugreek to address diabetes, indigestion, flatulence, blood pressure issues, and to control appetite. It makes a good face scrub, too

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Whether taken in seed or powder form or consumed fresh as a herb, fenugreek’s many benefits according to traditional Chinese and Indian medicine include helping diabetics, aiding weight loss, and promoting heart health. Used powdered as a spice, It also makes food more tasty. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:15pm, 4 Dec 2022

Come winter, markets in India are flooded with glossy, emerald green fenugreek leaves that cooks snap up to make healthy and delicious dishes. Known as methi, the ingredient is paired with potatoes to make aloo methi, or kneaded into dough to make fluffy, deep-fried puri bread or crispy paratha – to be savoured with tangy pickles.

My grandmother loved making saag – a gruel of chopped fenugreek leaves and yellow, green and red lentils. Simmered over a slow earthen stove for hours, once cooked it was mashed to a velvety consistency, and served in a bowl with roti or rice.

Granny would also incorporate fenugreek in teatime snacks such as mathri – deep-fried and flattened discs made from refined flour, salt and carom seeds.

Classified in the same family as soy, dried fenugreek seeds, leaves, twigs, and roots are commonly used as a spice, flavouring agent or supplement. Though associated mostly with Indian cooking, the herb is used widely across Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and in other parts of Asia.

A healthy, flavourful flat bread made of whole wheat, spices, yogurt, sesame seeds and fenugreek leaves. Photo: Shutterstock

Chef Vivek Rana of The Claridges hotel, in the Indian capital, New Delhi, uses fenugreek to amplify a dish’s taste while making it healthier. He incorporates it in breads, chicken curry and vegetable dishes and creates small platters of fenugreek-based dishes.