Imli Aloo Bukhara Sharbat: Iftar Recipe and Sugar per Glass

Imli aloo bukhara sharbat is tamarind and dried plums soaked, simmered, strained and sweetened into a dark, tangy concentrate that keeps for a week in the fridge; you mix one part with two parts cold water. Made our way, a glass carries about 6 to 7 teaspoons of sugar, so there’s a less-sweet version too, plus the honest notes on reflux, loose stools, potassium and diabetes that iftar tables rarely mention.

What goes into imli aloo bukhara sharbat

Two sour fruits do the work. Imli (tamarind) gives the deep, almost date-like sourness and the brown colour, while aloo bukhara, the dried plum you already know from biryani, adds a fruity, slightly smoky sweetness and the body that makes the glass feel substantial rather than watery. Together they make a drink that tastes much richer than lemon, which is why it turns up at iftar in so many Pakistani and North Indian homes and on summer street carts.

Buy seedless tamarind in a block if you can; our guide to tamarind pulp from a block covers checking for grit, fibre and insects. For the plums, look for soft, glossy, dark ones, not rock-hard or sugar-crusted; the aloo bukhara buying guide explains what to pick and how to store them.

Imli aloo bukhara sharbat recipe (concentrate)

1. Break 100 g of seedless tamarind block into small pieces. Rinse 150 g of aloo bukhara (roughly 20 to 25 plums) in a sieve.
2. Put both in a steel pan with 1.5 litres of water and leave to soak for 1 hour. Overnight in the fridge is fine too and softens them more.
3. Bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes, until the plums are collapsing and the tamarind has dissolved into a thick brown liquid.
4. Cool for 10 minutes. Mash hard with a potato masher or the back of a ladle, then push everything through a sieve with a spoon, scraping the underside. Discard the seeds, skins and fibre. You’ll lose some volume here.
5. Return the strained liquid to the pan. Add 250 g sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon kala namak and ½ teaspoon roasted cumin powder. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring, until the sugar is fully dissolved and the liquid is slightly syrupy.
6. Check the volume. If it’s much over 1 litre, simmer a few minutes more; if under, top up with boiled water to 1 litre so the sugar maths below holds.
7. Cool completely, pour into clean, dry glass bottles and refrigerate.
8. To serve: 80 ml concentrate (about 5 ½ tablespoons) in a 250 ml glass, top with 170 ml chilled water, add ice and a few mint leaves. A thin slice of lemon doesn’t hurt.

The less-sweet version

Use 125 g sugar instead of 250 g and add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice at the end. The extra sourness hides the missing sweetness surprisingly well. Everything else stays the same.

How much sugar is in one glass?

Here’s the arithmetic. The recipe puts 250 g of added sugar into 1 litre of concentrate, and one glass uses 80 ml of that, which works out to about 20 g of added sugar before you even count the fruit, and tamarind and dried plums are naturally sweet enough to bring several more grams per glass. The total lands at roughly 25 to 30 g, or about 6 to 7 level teaspoons.

The less-sweet version drops the added sugar to about 10 g per glass, so around 15 to 18 g in all. That’s still a sweet drink, just not a dessert in a glass.

For comparison, a typical glass of bottled red sharbat made the usual iftar way lands in a similar range; the Rooh Afza sugar breakdown has those numbers. The difference is that homemade imli aloo bukhara at least brings some fruit, fibre fragments and minerals along with the sugar, and you control how much goes in.

Imli aloo bukhara sharbat benefits: tradition and plain facts

The plain facts are simpler and still useful. It’s a cold drink that tastes good enough that people actually drink it after a long fast in the heat. Tamarind and dried plums both carry potassium, some fibre (much of it is strained out) and plant compounds that give the dark colour. Dried plums are also known for their gentle laxative effect, from fibre and a natural sugar alcohol called sorbitol, and tamarind has long been used the same way. That’s worth knowing either way, as the next section explains.

Did you know? Tamarind grows as brown pods on a large tree, and the sticky pulp around the seeds is what’s pressed into those blocks. The name “Tamarindus” comes from Arabic tamar hindi, meaning “Indian date”. And aloo bukhara literally means “plum of Bukhara”, after the old Silk Road city in today’s Uzbekistan.

Myth: a sour sharbat is automatically lighter than a sweet one

Sourness hides sugar. Always has. A tangy drink can carry just as much sugar as a syrupy red one because the acid balances it on your tongue. Only the recipe, or the label, tells you.

Honest notes for iftar and hot days

Reflux on an empty stomach

A big, ice-cold, sour glass straight after a 14-hour fast is exactly what sets off heartburn for some people, so open the fast with water and a date or two, eat a little of whatever is on the table, and only then pour the sharbat. If you already live with acidity, a half glass diluted more is kinder.

Loose stools

For some people, two or three glasses mean an unplanned trip to the bathroom a few hours later. That’s the tamarind and plums doing what they’ve always done. Keep it to one glass if you notice this, and don’t give it to anyone who already has diarrhoea; they need ORS, not a sour sharbat.

Potassium and kidneys

Both fruits are potassium-rich. Usually harmless. If you have kidney disease, are on dialysis or have been told to limit potassium, ask your kidney doctor or dietitian whether this drink fits your plan before making it a daily iftar habit.

Diabetes

Count it. A glass is 6 to 7 teaspoons of sugar. The less-sweet version, a smaller glass, or having it with food rather than on an empty stomach all help. Don’t change your medicines around it; if iftar drinks are unsettling your readings, your doctor can adjust the plan properly.

Imli aloo bukhara sharbat questions

Find more iftar and summer drinks in Desi Remedies.