Kapha Recipes

In this collection of blogs, we'll explore the best kapha-balancing recipes for following a kapha diet.

Like the other doshas, kapha dosha can be greatly impacted by diet. Ayurveda teaches that kapha is the dosha that is most active during the first stage of digestion, when food travels through the mouth and upper stomach and the saliva of the body mixes with food to help digestion.

Experiencing lethargy after eating could be an indication of excessive, or imbalanced, kapha bogging down the digestive tract and keeping food from properly traveling all the way through the necessary channels of digestion.

The time of year when kapha is most likely to become imbalanced is during the late winter and early spring, which Ayurveda calls “kapha season.” This time of year is when moisture and the other qualities of kapha are at their height in the atmosphere. As a result, you'll see many winter or spring recipes among these articles.

Kapha-Balancing Cooking Ideas

Kapha-balancing meals are ideally whole, freshly cooked foods that are served warm or hot. For best results, they should incorporate light, dry, well-spiced, energetically warming ingredients that have an easy texture for the body to digest.

For example, Ayurveda's staple meal, kitchari, is balancing for all three doshas and contains basmati rice, yellow mung dal, and various digestive spices. For a kapha kitchari recipe, you might try making it even more balancing for kapha by adding additional warming spices like peppercorns, ginger, and a stick of cinnamon.

Here are a few more ideas to balance kapha:

Favor Kapha-Balancing Tastes. Ayurveda teaches that taste is an incredibly important part of the digestive process. Tastes like the following can help balance kapha right from the start.

• Eat pungent foods like chilies, radishes, raw garlic, raw onion, and especially heating spices
• Enjoy the bitter taste through foods like kale, dandelion, or collards, and spices like cumin and turmeric
• Incorporate more of the astringent taste into your diet by consuming foods like legumes, vegetables, apples, cranberries, green bananas, and pomegranates

Avoid Tastes that Aggravate Kapha.

• Avoid the sweet taste—take care with sugary sweets, as well as grains, fruits, squashes, root vegetables, and dairy products
• Minimize your intake of the sour taste and proceed with caution around vinegar, pineapples, grapefruits, and alcohol
• Cut down on the salty taste by reducing your intake of salt in general.

Another good way to keep kapha balanced is by establishing a consistent meal schedule—especially when planning kapha-balancing breakfast recipes. A consistent breakfast time gives the body adequate time to eat the first meal of the day in a state of mindfulness and gratitude, which goes a long way in helping us feel nourished throughout the day.

In general, kapha does not respond well to snacks, instead preferring the consistent routine of three set meals per day. Since the agni, or digestive fire, is at its strongest around mid-day, from the hours of roughly 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., this is an ideal time to eat lunch. Ayurveda recommends making lunch your biggest meal of the day for this reason.

We hope that you enjoy these recipes as much as we have, and that they motivate you to get cooking and stay balanced!