Sheer Khurma Recipe (Pakistani) and the Sugar in Every Bowl

A 150 ml bowl of the sheer khurma recipe below carries about 26 g of sugar, and roughly half of that is the sugar you stir in; the rest comes from milk, dates and raisins. Here’s the recipe by weight, a lower-sugar version sweetened by dates alone, and how to eat it on Eid morning after 30 fasts without a sore stomach by noon.

Sheer khurma recipe, Pakistani style, by weight

Sheer means milk and khurma means dates, in Persian. Dates matter. The traditional ones are chuhare (dried dates), hard as wood until they’re soaked.

Ingredients

• 1.5 litres full-cream milk
• 60 g fine roasted sewaiyan (vermicelli)
• 1 tablespoon (15 g) ghee
• 8 chuhare, about 40 g
• 20 g almonds and 15 g pistachios
• 20 g raisins (kishmish)
• 4 green cardamom pods, crushed
• 100 g sugar

Method

1. Soak the chuhare in hot water for 15 minutes (or overnight in cold). Pit them and slice into thin strips. Soak the almonds too if you like to peel them.
2. Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy pan with the cardamom, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring the bottom, until it reduces by about a quarter.
3. In a small pan, warm the ghee and fry the sewaiyan on low heat for 2 to 3 minutes until golden and smelling nutty. Add the sliced chuhare, almonds and pistachios for the last minute.
4. Tip the sewaiyan mix into the milk. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes; sewaiyan soften fast.
5. Stir in the sugar and raisins, cook 2 more minutes, and switch off. It thickens a lot as it cools, so stop while it still looks a little thin.
6. Serve warm in bowls of about 150 ml. Keeps 2 days in the fridge, covered. Reheat with a splash of milk.

Want khoya, condensed milk or custard powder? They’re popular, and each one adds more sugar and fat. Condensed milk is roughly half sugar by weight, so a 100 g pour adds about as much sugar again as the whole 100 g line above.

How much sugar is in a bowl of sheer khurma?

Let’s add it up from the pot, then divide by 8. These are round figures from standard food tables; your milk and dates will vary a little.

So one bowl holds about 26 g of sugar in all, and the added part is about 12.5 g, a little over 3 level teaspoons. For comparison, a 30 g square of barfi usually carries somewhere around 12 to 15 g of sugar, and one gulab jamun soaked in its sheera often more. A bowl of sheer khurma, then, is roughly two pieces of mithai in total sugar. The calories come to about 260 per bowl: the milk (about 975 kcal in the pot), sugar (400), sewaiyan (215), nuts, dates and raisins (about 375) and ghee (135), total about 2,100 across 8 bowls. Visiting three houses and accepting a bowl at each is 780 kcal before lunch.

Sheer khurma with jaggery, or dates only: does it help?

Swapping 100 g sugar for 100 g gur changes the flavour (deeper, caramel) and adds tiny amounts of iron and minerals. It doesn’t change the sugar much, because gur is mostly sucrose too. For blood sugar, treat it the same. One practical tip: gur can split hot milk, so let the pot cool for a few minutes before stirring in grated gur.

The lower-sugar version

1. Leave out the 100 g sugar.
2. Pit 10 soft dates (about 80 g flesh), soak them in 100 ml warm milk for 10 minutes, and blend smooth.
3. Stir the date paste in at step 5, with the chuhare and raisins as usual.

This brings the pot to roughly 165 g of sugar, about 20 g per bowl, with no sugar added from the bag. It’s sweet enough for most people, a shade browner, and carries a little more fibre, but let’s be clear that it is still very much a sweet dish. Dates are wonderful food, and our khajoor guide covers their types, but date sugar is sugar to your pancreas.

Why a big Eid breakfast hurts after 30 fasts

For a month your stomach has had two meals a day, at sehri and iftar, and it has got used to that. Eid morning suddenly brings sheer khurma, then halwa puri, then chana, then a second house’s sheer khurma, often before 11 am. It rebels. A stomach used to rest gets overloaded, and heavy, sweet, fatty food all at once means bloating, heartburn and that heavy, sleepy slump by noon.

Use the iftar order you’ve practised all month. Start with water and a date or two, then something savoury with protein (eggs, chana, a small kebab), and only then a small bowl of sheer khurma. At the second and third house, a few spoonfuls is polite enough; “bas, chakh li” works in every family. If you do overdo it, our guide on heavy meal indigestion has the gentle fixes, and mithai portions for Eid covers the rest of the day’s sweets.

Sheer khurma for diabetics: portions on Eid

If you have diabetes, Eid is a day to plan with your doctor, especially if you use insulin or sulfonylurea tablets, since both were probably adjusted for Ramadan and the switch back to daytime eating matters. Don’t change or skip any medicine on your own; ask your doctor what Eid day should look like.

• Take half a bowl (about 75 ml), not a full one.
• Eat it after a savoury, protein breakfast, never on an empty stomach.
• Make it your sweet for the day, and say no to the next house’s bowl.
• If you use a glucometer, a check about 2 hours after eating tells you how this dish hits you.
• The dates-only version is gentler on added sugar, but still counts.

Food eaten on Eid, and where sheer khurma fits

Across Pakistan and North India, Eid ul Fitr (expected around 20 March 2027, depending on the moon) starts with something sweet before the Eid prayer, following the tradition of eating dates before leaving home. Sheer khurma is the house dish that follows, with shami kebab, chana chaat, dahi bhallay and later a biryani or qorma lunch. The sweet start is sunnah and custom; the four bowls by lunch are just habit. For the days after, the Desi Remedies section has gentle ways to settle a stomach.

Sheer khurma questions people search