Khajoor, Anjeer and Badam Paste: What One Spoon Gives You

Verdict: khajoor, anjeer and badam paste is a handy natural sweetener and a small energy top-up, not a tonic. One level tablespoon gives roughly 55 kcal and about 7 g of fruit sugar, which is useful for a thin child or a busy adult who needs extra calories, and worth counting for anyone with diabetes.

Prefer to listen? This post as a 2 min video · Watch the video

It turns up in reels as “sugar-free energy paste” or “dry fruit jam, no cheeni”. No cheeni? True. Sugar-free? No. Dates and figs are mostly natural sugar, and a blender doesn’t change that. What the paste does well is replace white sugar in halwa, kheer, shakes and toast while bringing some fibre along. This guide in our Desi Remedies series shows what one spoon holds, how to make it safely, and who should keep the spoon small.

What one spoon of khajoor anjeer badam paste actually gives

Start with the batch. Dry ingredients weigh 200 g, and the 60 ml of soaking water brings the paste to about 260 g. So a 20 g spoon holds about 15.4 g of the dry fruit: roughly 7.7 g of dates, 3.9 g of figs and 3.9 g of almonds. Multiply those grams by standard food-table values per 100 g, add them up, and round.

Two honest notes on these figures. Dates range from about 60 to 66 g of sugar per 100 g depending on variety and dryness, so a paste made with very dry Irani dates runs sweeter. And if you blend with no water at all, the same spoon holds more fruit, so it climbs to roughly 70 kcal and 9 g of sugar. That is where the “10 g of sugar per spoon” figures you’ll see online come from.

What each ingredient brings, and what it doesn’t

• Khajoor (dates): the sweetness, most of the calories and most of the potassium. Our dates guide covers varieties and buying.
• Anjeer (dried figs): fibre, a little calcium, and the pleasant seedy crunch. Soaking softens them; see soaked anjeer for the overnight method.
• Badam (almonds): fat, protein and body. They slow the sugar down a little and make the paste creamy rather than sticky.

None of the three is a meaningful iron source at this amount, because a third of a milligram is a rounding error next to the roughly 18 mg a woman needs in a day, and a good part of plant iron never gets absorbed anyway. Keep that in mind.

What the paste can’t do

Forwards promise “khoon badhta hai”, stronger bones, glowing skin and quick weight gain for children. A spoon can’t meet those. About 0.3 mg of iron won’t correct anaemia, which needs a blood test and a proper plan. Twenty milligrams of calcium is about a sip of milk. And 55 kcal is a small nudge, not weight gain on its own.

Did you know? A single medium date weighs about 8 to 10 g without its stone, so one spoon of this paste holds roughly one date’s worth of dates, plus a bit of fig and two or three almonds.

How to make it so it stays fresh for a week

1. Wash 50 g almonds (about 40) and soak them in 100 ml water for 8 hours. Peel them if you like a smoother paste.
2. Rinse 100 g pitted soft dates and 50 g dried figs (4 to 5 figs). Snip the hard fig stems. Soak both in 150 ml warm water for 2 to 3 hours.
3. Check every date for insects or mould as you pit it. Throw away any that look powdery or smell sour.
4. Blend dates, figs and almonds with 60 ml of the fruit soaking water until smooth, scraping down twice.
5. Spoon into a clean, dry glass jar and refrigerate straight away. Use a dry spoon every time.
6. Finish it within 7 days. Water and fruit sugar make a comfortable home for mould, so a grey film, a fizzy smell or a sour, winey taste means the whole jar goes in the bin.

For a thicker spread that keeps a few days longer, blend with less water and freeze half in an ice-cube tray. Each cube is roughly one spoon.

What if you change the amounts?

• More dates: sweeter and stickier, with more sugar per spoon and no real gain.
• More figs: more fibre and a softer sweetness. Good for anyone who gets constipated.
• More almonds: more calories, protein and fat per spoon. Handy for weight gain, less so for weight loss.
• Adding honey: pointless. It’s already sweet, and honey is never for babies under 1.
• Adding milk to blend: the paste spoils in 2 to 3 days. Stick with water.

How to use it as a sweetener

One spoon sweetens a glass of milk, a bowl of dalia or a small katori of kheer about as much as 2 teaspoons of sugar. It’s lovely spread thin on toast, rolled into energy balls with oats, or stirred into dahi. It won’t dissolve like sugar. It also browns faster in a hot pan, so add it towards the end of cooking, once the milk or dalia is nearly done and the flame is low, and stir well so it doesn’t catch on the bottom.

Cheaper swaps that do as much or more

Two whole dates eaten slowly with a few almonds give the same sugar, more chewing satisfaction and a fuller feeling, cost nothing extra to prepare, need no fridge and no blender, and can’t go mouldy in a jar at the back of the shelf while you’re away for the weekend, which makes them the easier habit for most families. A ripe banana mashed into dalia sweetens it for less money. For iron, a katori of chana or palak with lemon beats a jar of paste. It’s a sugar swap. That’s all.

Questions people ask about dry fruit paste