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Sago substitute

Best substitute

Small tapioca pearls (seed tapioca)

Use the same amount as the sago you are replacing

Best for sabudana khichdi

Close match

Small tapioca pearls, sometimes labeled seed tapioca, are a straight 1:1 swap and are so close that a great deal of what is sold as sago or sabudana is actually tapioca already. For a pudding where sago was only there to thicken, 1 tablespoon of tapioca starch or cornstarch per cup of liquid does the job. For a fasting khichdi, barnyard millet, sold as samak rice or sama, is the traditional alternative.

Other sago substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

Substitutes for Sago with ratios

  1. 2Large tapioca pearls (boba)

    Different texture

    Use the same amount by volume, but boiled rather than soaked

    The big chewy pearls used in bubble tea, several times the diameter of sago.

    What changes
    Best for
    sweet drinks, puddings and sweet soups

    Fine in a drink or a dessert soup, wrong for anything savory. They cannot be soaked, they must be boiled for 20 to 30 minutes and then rested, and at that size they read as distinct chewy blobs rather than the fine grainy texture sago gives. Never use these for sabudana khichdi, where the pearls need to stay small and separate and coat in oil.

  2. 3Tapioca starch or cornstarch

    Different texture

    Use 1 tablespoon starch for every cup of liquid, replacing 2 to 3 tablespoons of sago pearls

    Powdered starch, slurried with cold liquid before being stirred into the hot pot.

    What changes
    Best for
    sago pudding, thickened sweet soups, custards and fruit sauces

    Only works where sago was doing a thickening job. You get the same body and, with tapioca starch, a similar glossy translucency, but you lose the pearls entirely, so a sago pudding becomes a smooth pudding. Tapioca starch is the better match visually; cornstarch sets cloudier and a bit more claggy. Always slurry it in cold liquid first or it lumps.

  3. 4Barnyard millet (samak rice, sama, varai)

    Taste and texture differ

    Use the same amount by volume

    A tiny quick-cooking millet widely used in Indian fasting cooking, cooked like rice.

    What changes
    Best for
    vrat and fasting khichdi, savory upma-style dishes

    The traditional Indian answer when sabudana is not available for a fasting dish, and it makes an excellent khichdi with the same peanuts, potato, cumin and green chilli. What changes is texture: it is fluffy and grainy where sabudana is chewy and slippery, so the dish is lighter and less rich-feeling. Rinse well, then cook 1 part millet to 2 parts water for about 12 minutes.

  4. 5Poha (flattened rice)

    Taste and texture differ

    Use the same amount by volume

    Rice flakes that soften in a couple of minutes with only a rinse.

    What changes
    Best for
    khichdi-style breakfast dishes, quick savory dishes

    A fast weekday swap for a savory sabudana dish, using the same tempering and the same peanuts. It is soft and pillowy rather than chewy and glossy, and it does not clump the way soaked sabudana does, so the finished dish is looser and drier. Note that poha is not accepted in all fasting traditions, unlike sabudana and samak.

  5. 6Chia seeds

    Taste and texture differ

    Use 3 tablespoons chia for every cup of liquid

    Tiny seeds that form a gel coating in liquid, no cooking required.

    What changes
    Best for
    cold sweet puddings, coconut milk desserts

    Only for cold desserts, and only if you want a genuinely different thing. Chia gives you small soft beads suspended in a set liquid, which visually resembles a sago pudding, but the seeds are slightly crunchy at the center, the pudding is speckled rather than translucent, and there is a faint nutty flavor. It is a nice dessert. It is not sago.

What is Sago?

Sago is Sago is small pearls of pure starch, traditionally extracted from the pith of the sago palm, that swell into soft translucent beads when soaked or simmered and are known in India as sabudana.

Cooking tips

  • The soaking is where sabudana dishes are won or lost. Rinse the pearls in two or three changes of water to wash off loose starch, then add water only until it sits level with the top of the pearls, roughly equal volume, and leave them 4 to 6 hours or overnight. Drown them in water and you get glue.
  • Test a soaked pearl by pressing it between finger and thumb. It should squash easily with no hard white speck in the middle. If there is a speck, sprinkle over a tablespoon or two of water and wait another hour rather than adding a cupful.
  • Tapioca pearls hydrate faster than true sago, so if you have swapped them in, start checking at 2 to 3 hours. This is the most common mistake with the substitution and it produces a sticky mass instead of separate pearls.
  • For khichdi, toss the drained pearls with a spoonful of oil or ghee and the ground peanuts before they hit the pan. Coating them keeps them from welding together, and no amount of careful stirring later will fix pearls that went in bare.
  • Sago and tapioca are almost pure starch with essentially no flavor and no protein, so they contribute texture and bulk and nothing else. Everything the dish tastes of comes from the tempering, the peanuts, the coconut milk or the sugar, which means a substitution rarely changes the flavor much, only the mouthfeel.

Frequently asked questions

Is sago the same as tapioca?

Not botanically. True sago is starch from the pith of the sago palm, while tapioca is starch from the cassava root. In practice they are sold in identical-looking pearls and used identically, and much of what is labeled sago or sabudana in shops today is actually tapioca. You can swap one for the other with no change to a recipe except a shorter soak for tapioca, which softens faster.

Can I use tapioca flour or starch instead of sago pearls?

Only if the sago was there to thicken, as in a pudding or a sweet soup. Use about 1 tablespoon of starch, slurried in cold liquid, per cup of liquid in place of 2 to 3 tablespoons of pearls. In a dish like sabudana khichdi or vada, where the pearls are the substance and the texture, starch is useless and will give you paste.

Can I just leave the sago out?

In a pudding, yes, if something else is thickening it, though you will lose the beads that give it its character. In sabudana khichdi or vada the pearls are the dish itself, so leaving them out is not substitution but cancellation. In that case use barnyard millet or poha and make a related dish instead.

Which substitute works for a fasting or vrat recipe?

Barnyard millet, sold as samak rice, sama or varai, and water chestnut flour dishes are the usual accepted alternatives in Indian fasting cooking, and barnyard millet khichdi is made with the same peanuts, potato and cumin as the sabudana version. Tapioca pearls are usually treated the same as sabudana. Poha and grain flours generally are not permitted in many traditions, so check against whatever practice you follow rather than treating this as a cooking question alone.

What job is sago doing in the recipe?

Texture and bulk. It has almost no flavor of its own, so it is not there for taste. In khichdi and vada it supplies chewy, glossy, slightly slippery pearls that carry the oil and spices and make the dish substantial. In a pudding it does double duty, thickening the liquid as its starch releases while leaving soft beads suspended in it. Work out which of those two roles matters, and the right substitute becomes obvious: pearls for texture, starch for thickening.

Related substitutes

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