Snacks, Sweets & Confectionery

Britannia Good Day Pistachio & Almond Cookies are butter cookies from Britannia's long-running Good Day range, made with visible pieces of pistachio and almond mixed into the dough. Good Day is one of India's most widely recognised biscuit brands.

The cookies have a rich, buttery taste with a crisp, crumbly texture, and the pistachio and almond pieces add a nutty flavour and light crunch to each bite.

How to use

• Ready to eat straight from the pack, on their own or with tea or coffee.

Pack size: 72g. Store in a cool, dry place and reseal the pack after opening to keep the cookies crisp.

Townbus Aloo Bhujia is the fine, tangled noodle namkeen made from gram flour and potato, fried crisp and seasoned with salt and mild spice. The strands are thin enough to break apart in the hand, which is why it works as well scattered over something as it does eaten by the handful. It is savoury and lightly hot rather than fiery.

Best with

• Tea or filter coffee in the afternoon
• Scattered over chaat, bhel or a plate of curd rice
• A bowl put out for guests alongside other namkeens
• Sprinkled on upma or poha for crunch

Pack and storage

150g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Bhujia loses its crispness quickly once air gets in, so press the air out of the bag and clip it shut, or tip the contents into an airtight jar.

Townbus Avalakki Mixture is the Karnataka-style snack mix built on roasted flattened rice, or avalakki, with fried lentils, peanuts, curry leaves and spices through it. It is lighter than a gram-flour mixture because the poha stays airy rather than dense, and the seasoning is savoury and mildly hot. Every handful comes out slightly different depending on what you pick up.

Best with

• Tea or coffee in the afternoon
• A snack bowl for guests
• Topped over curd rice or a plate of chaat
• Long journeys and desk drawers

Pack and storage

150g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Flattened rice softens quickly in damp air, so decant the mixture into an airtight jar once the pack is open.

Townbus Banana Chips are raw bananas sliced thin and fried until golden, then salted while still warm. They are firmer and starchier than a potato crisp, with a clean banana flavour underneath the salt and no sweetness to speak of. The slices are thick enough to snap audibly.

Best with

• Tea or coffee
• A South Indian meal, served on the side of the plate
• Sadya-style festival spreads
• Packed lunches and long drives

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Keep them away from heat and sunlight, which turn fried chips stale faster than anything else, and move them to an airtight jar once the pack has been opened.

Townbus Cornflakes Mixture is a namkeen built on crisp cornflakes rather than gram flour, with fried lentils, peanuts and spices mixed through. The flakes stay light and shatter easily, so it eats as a lighter mixture than a sev-heavy one, and the seasoning is salty with a mild chilli edge. Children usually take to this one first.

Best with

• Tea and coffee
• A party or guest snack bowl
• Chaat, as a crunchy topping
• Lunch boxes and after-school snacking

Pack and storage

150g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Cornflakes go limp faster than fried snacks do, so transfer the mixture to an airtight jar as soon as the pack is opened.

Townbus Garlic Mixture is a South Indian snack mix carrying a strong roasted garlic flavour, with fried lentils, peanuts and crisp rice crackers through it. The garlic is the point rather than a background note, so it is a mixture for people who already know they like garlic. It is savoury and moderately hot.

Best with

• Tea or coffee in the evening
• A snack bowl for a gathering
• Plain curd rice, which balances the garlic
• Something to nibble alongside a drink

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Keep it in a well-sealed jar and away from other snacks, since the garlic aroma travels and will find its way into anything stored open beside it.

Townbus Madras Mixture is the Chennai-style snack medley: sev, fried lentils, peanuts and gram-flour strands tumbled together with curry leaves and spices. What makes a good mixture is the variety of textures in a single handful, and this one runs from fine threads to whole nuts. It is savoury with a steady chilli warmth behind it.

Best with

• Tea and filter coffee
• A snack bowl put out for guests
• Spooned over curd rice or bhel
• Evening snacking and travel

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Tip it into an airtight jar once the pack is open, as the fine sev in the mix absorbs moisture first and takes the rest of the mixture soft with it.

Townbus Masala Peanut is whole peanuts jacketed in a spiced gram-flour batter and fried, so each one has a crisp shell around a firm nut. It is the standard tea-time and bar snack across India, salty and mildly hot, and it is more filling than a crisp or a sev because of the nut at the centre.

Best with

• Tea, coffee or a cold drink
• A bar snack or party nibble
• Tossed with sliced onion, tomato, lemon and coriander as a quick masala peanut chaat
• Long journeys

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Keep the pack airtight; the coating softens first and the nuts inside lose their snap soon after.

Townbus Thenkulal Murukku is the fine, thread-textured murukku, made from rice flour and seasoned with cumin and pepper. Where a chakli snaps, thenkulal collapses: the strands are thin enough that a piece breaks apart almost as soon as you bite it. That lightness is the whole appeal, and it makes this the gentlest murukku of the range.

Best with

• Filter coffee and tea
• Festival and Diwali snack plates
• An everyday snack, including for children
• Serving alongside a hotter snack for contrast

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Handle the pack gently, as fine murukku breaks up easily, and keep it airtight so the thin strands do not turn soft.

Townbus Soya Sticks are crisp extruded sticks made from soya, light and savoury with a dry, snappy texture closer to a cracker than a fried namkeen. They are mildly seasoned rather than chilli-hot, and the uniform stick shape makes them easy to put in a bowl or a lunch box without crumbs everywhere.

Best with

• Tea, coffee or a cold drink
• A snack bowl alongside dips or chutney
• Lunch boxes and desk snacking
• Children, since the seasoning is mild

Pack and storage

110g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Extruded sticks soften quickly once exposed to air, so seal the pack tightly or keep them in an airtight jar.

Townbus Rice Kodubale is the ring-shaped Karnataka snack made from rice flour and roasted gram, spiced with coconut and chilli and fried until hard and crunchy. It is a denser, tougher bite than a murukku, and the coconut gives it a distinct flavour you will not find in the Tamil Nadu snacks beside it on the shelf.

Best with

• Tea and filter coffee
• Festival snack boxes
• An evening snack for people who like a firm crunch
• Travel, since the rings hold their shape well

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Kodubale keeps better than most fried snacks thanks to its density, but an airtight jar will still hold the crunch longer.

Kings Dried Dates 200g

Haldiram's Boondi Masala is tiny gram flour droplets fried into crisp golden pearls and coated in a warm, salty spice mix. The boondi is light enough to shatter between your teeth, so it works as much as a topping as it does a snack in its own right.

Best with

• Tea-time snacking
• Scattering over curd rice, dal or raita
• Adding crunch to chaat

Pack and storage

200 g pack. Keep in a cool, dry place and reseal after opening so the pearls stay crisp.

Haldiram's Boondi Plain is gram flour boondi fried crisp and salted, with none of the masala coating. Because it is simply seasoned it takes on whatever you put it with, which is why it is the version cooks keep for raita and rice.

Best with

• Stirring into boondi raita
• Topping curd rice, dal or khichdi
• Plain snacking for anyone avoiding spice

Pack and storage

200 g pack. Store in a cool, dry place and seal the pack after opening.

Haldiram's Chana Dal namkeen is split Bengal gram fried until crisp and seasoned with salt and a light dusting of spice. Each piece keeps a firm, nutty bite rather than shattering like sev, so it is a slower, more substantial snack.

Best with

• Serving with drinks
• Chai in the afternoon
• Mixing into homemade namkeen blends and chaat

Pack and storage

200 g pack. Store in a cool, dry place and reseal tightly after opening.

Haldiram's Dry Petha is the Agra-style sweet made from ash gourd, candied in sugar syrup and then dried so the outside is firm and lightly crystallised while the inside stays soft and juicy. It is a sweet, not a namkeen, and it is far less rich than a milk-based mithai.

Best with

• Serving after a meal
• Festival sweet boxes and gifting
• Chai in the afternoon

Pack and storage

400 g pack. Store in a cool, dry place and keep the pack sealed after opening.

Beyond Kerala Banana Chips are raw banana slices fried in coconut oil and finished with rock salt — the chip sold by weight outside every bakery and bus stand in Kerala, where it is called kaya varuthathu or upperi.

Coconut oil is what sets these apart from an ordinary crisp: it gives the chip a distinct, faintly sweet aroma and a hard, clean snap rather than a greasy one. The rock salt is scattered on at the end, so the seasoning sits on the surface and hits first.

Eaten on their own with tea, packed for journeys, or served as part of a sadya spread. 100g. Keep the pack sealed and finish it within a day or two of opening — fried chips lose their crispness fast once air gets in.

Udhaiyam / Lakshmi Palm Candy is panangkalkandu — crystallised palm sugar in irregular amber lumps, 200g.

It is the traditional South Indian sweetener: less sharply sweet than white sugar, with a faint caramel and palm note. It is stirred into hot milk and filter coffee, dropped into herbal kashayam and ginger decoctions, used in payasam and other festival sweets, and offered during pooja. Many households simply keep a jar and let people take a piece after a meal.

The crystals dissolve more slowly than granulated sugar — crush the larger lumps first if you are adding them to a cold drink. Store in a dry, airtight jar away from moisture.

Telugu Foods Sakinalu is the Telangana festival snack: rice flour worked with sesame seeds and ajwain, piped into loose coils and deep fried until hard. This is the spicy version, so there is a clear chilli warmth behind the sesame. It is a substantial, brittle snack that shatters rather than crumbles, and the sesame is what people recognise it by.

Best with

• Tea or filter coffee
• Sankranti and other festival snack plates
• An evening snack with something plain alongside
• Sending to family, since it travels well

Pack and storage

130g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Sakinalu are fragile, so keep the pack somewhere it will not be knocked about, and move them to a rigid airtight container once opened to hold the crunch.

ja! Roasted & Salted Peanuts are shelled peanuts, dry roasted and salted, in a 200g pack.

The roast is what makes them: deep and even, so the nuts snap rather than bend, with just enough salt to keep you going back to the bowl. Straightforward beer-and-cricket snacking, but they earn their place in cooking too — scattered over poha and upma, stirred into chivda and bhel, crushed into a peanut chutney, or pounded for a Thai salad dressing.

Tip them into a bowl rather than eating from the bag if you want them to last the evening. Store sealed in a cool, dry cupboard.

Leicht & Cross High Protein Crispy Bread is the thin, crisp German knusperbrot in the high-protein version of the range — 115g of light, airy slices with an open, bubbly structure rather than the dense snap of a rye crispbread.

It is a base rather than a snack in its own right: topped with cheese, quark, cream cheese and cucumber, smoked salmon, avocado, hummus or jam, it becomes breakfast or a quick evening plate. The neutral taste means it carries sweet and savoury toppings equally well.

Top it just before eating, since the slices soften quickly once something moist sits on them. Store the pack sealed in a dry cupboard.

Haldiram's Bhelpuri with Chutney is a complete bhel kit — puffed rice and crisp sev in the pack with sachets of chutney to stir through just before eating. Add chopped onion, tomato and coriander if you have them, mix everything together and eat it straight away while it is still crunchy.

Best with

• A quick evening chaat at home
• Serving at parties as a make-it-yourself bowl
• Chai on the side

Pack and storage

350 g pack. Store in a cool, dry place and keep the pack sealed until you are ready to mix, as the puffed rice softens quickly once dressed.

Haldiram's Cookie Heaven Kaju Pista Cookies are sweet, ghee-rich biscuits with cashew and pistachio baked through them — a dessert-style cookie for chai, not a namkeen.

They carry the soft, crumbling texture that ghee gives, with visible nut pieces rather than just flavouring.

Best with

• Masala chai or coffee
• Festival sweet boxes and gifting
• Everyday snacking

Pack and storage

200 g. Keep sealed in a cool, dry place. Contains nuts and dairy.

Haldiram Rasgulla are spongy chhena balls simmered and held in a light sugar syrup. They are much lighter than gulab jamun — white rather than browned, with a springy squeeze that releases the syrup as you bite.

Best with

• Serving chilled after a meal
• Festivals and family gatherings
• Anyone who finds fried sweets too heavy

Pack and storage

1 kg, packed in syrup. Keep the sealed pack in a cool, dry place. After opening, refrigerate and finish within a few days, keeping the pieces submerged in syrup.