Grocery list
South Indian week
Everything the seven-day chart needs, in raw quantities, for one adult.
What the week costs to buy
One adult · seven days · indicative
₹500per week വിവരം ₹70 a day at coarse metro retail rates — realistically anywhere between ₹350 and ₹650 depending on your city, your season and whether you buy dal by the kilo or by the packet. The quantities below are derived; the rupee column is the weakest thing on this site and says so.
SOURCE·Quantities from per-serving raw-ingredient weights; rates set by hand, no published series·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The week's shopping
Raw quantities for one adult for seven days, largest line first. Multiply by the number of people eating.
| Buy | Quantity | Mostly for | Indicative cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetables | 2.08 kg | Mixed Vegetable Sabzi, Green Salad, Lauki Sabzi, Sambar | ₹114 |
| Dal — toor, moong, masoor, chana, urad | 635 g | Toor Dal (Arhar) Tadka, Plain Dosa, Sambar, Idli | ₹95 |
| Curd | 1.10 kg | Curd (Dahi), Chaas (Buttermilk) | ₹88 |
| Atta (whole wheat flour) | 720 g | Roti (Chapati) | ₹35 |
| Cooking oil | 215 മി.ലി | Mixed Vegetable Sabzi, Besan Chilla, Toor Dal (Arhar) Tadka, Plain Dosa | ₹33 |
| Besan & sattu | 320 g | Besan Chilla | ₹30 |
| Rice | 480 g | Plain Dosa, Idli, Boiled White Rice | ₹29 |
| Onion, potato, tomato | 600 g | Mixed Vegetable Sabzi, Besan Chilla, Sambar, Lauki Sabzi | ₹24 |
| പഴങ്ങൾ | 300 g | Banana | ₹21 |
| Peanuts & nuts | 50 g | Almonds, Peanuts, Walnuts | ₹13 |
| Chana, rajma, lobia, matki (dry) | 70 g | Moong Sprouts Salad | ₹8 |
| Coconut | 70 g | Coconut Chutney | ₹6 |
| Milk | 70 മി.ലി | South Indian Filter Coffee | ₹4 |
| Leafy greens | 45 g | Green Chutney | ₹3 |
| Sugar, jaggery, tea & coffee | 15 g | South Indian Filter Coffee, Black Tea, no sugar | ₹1 |
| Week, one adult | ₹504 |
Cost is quantity × an indicative rate per kilo, listed in full on the method page. Rates were set in mid-2026 for metro retail and are deliberately coarse — a ±30% swing between cities and seasons is normal, and buying dal by the kilo rather than the packet moves it further.
What gets cooked, and how often
Servings of each dish across the seven days — useful for batch cooking on a Sunday.
| വിഭവം | Servings this week | One serving is |
|---|---|---|
| Roti (Chapati) | 24 | 1 medium phulka roti · 45 g |
| Mixed Vegetable Sabzi | 10 | 1 katori · 150 g |
| Toor Dal (Arhar) Tadka | 9 | 1 കട്ടോറി വേവിച്ച പരിപ്പ് · 150 ഗ്രാം |
| Besan Chilla | 8 | 2 chillas · 120 g |
| ഇഡ്ഡലി | 8 | 1 medium idli · 40 g |
| Curd (Dahi) | 6.7 | 1 katori · 150 g |
| പ്ലെയിൻ ദോശ | 6 | 1 plain dosa · 70 g |
| Sambar | 4.4 | 1 katori sambar · 150 g |
| Green Salad | 4 | 1 side plate · 100 g |
| Coconut Chutney | 3.4 | 2 tablespoons · 30 g |
| Banana | 3 | 1 medium banana · 100 g |
| Green Chutney | 2 | 2 tablespoons · 30 g |
| Almonds | 2 | 10 almonds · 12 g |
| Chana Dal | 2 | 1 കട്ടോറി വേവിച്ച പരിപ്പ് · 150 ഗ്രാം |
| Moong Sprouts Salad | 2 | 1 katori sprouts · 100 g |
| Moong Dal | 2 | 1 കട്ടോറി വേവിച്ച പരിപ്പ് · 150 ഗ്രാം |
| Lauki Sabzi | 2 | 1 katori · 150 g |
| വാൾനട്ട് | 1 | 4 halves · 12 g |
| ഛാസ് (മോര്) | 1 | 1 glass · 250 g |
| Boiled White Rice | 1 | 1 katori cooked rice · 150 g |
| Bhindi Masala | 1 | 1 katori · 150 g |
| Black Tea, no sugar | 1 | 1 cup · 150 g |
| South Indian Filter Coffee | 1 | 1 tumbler · 120 g |
| Peanuts | 0.6 | 1 small handful · 25 g |
Shopping this list without wasting half of it
Buy the dry goods monthly and the wet goods twice a week. Atta, rice, dal, chana, peanuts and oil keep for months and are cheaper by the kilo; vegetables, curd, milk and anything non-vegetarian do not, and the single biggest source of waste in an Indian kitchen is a week's vegetables bought on a Sunday and forgotten by Thursday.
Two lines on this list are worth buying badly and two are not. Vegetables can be whatever is cheap this week — the chart does not care whether the sabzi is lauki or bhindi. Dal and oil are worth buying properly, because you eat them every single day.
What to check before you go to the shop
What does this week's shopping cost?
About ₹500 for one adult for seven days, or roughly ₹70 a day, at indicative metro retail rates. Prices vary enormously by city and season — treat this as a scale check, not a quote.
How are these quantities worked out?
Each dish in the plan has a documented raw-ingredient mapping — one roti is 30 g of atta, one katori of dal is 30 g of dry dal, one katori of curd is 150 g. The plan knows how many servings of each dish it contains, so multiplying through gives the week's shopping. The working is in the table below.
Do I need protein powder or anything imported?
No. Nothing on this list is imported, and there is no supplement anywhere in it. The protein comes from dal, chana, curd, soya chunks, peanuts, eggs and paneer — all of which are in an ordinary kirana shop.
Calories and macros are computed from the ThaliFacts dataset, which is based on the Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (ICMR–NIN), plus the regional dishes estimated for this site and marked est wherever they appear. Energy reconciles against 4P + 4C + 9F on every build. Every source, with the date it was last checked, is listed on the sources page. General information only — not medical or nutrition advice. These are illustrative plans built on average values; they are not prescriptions and cannot account for allergies, conditions or medication.
SOURCE·Computed from ThaliFacts food data·REVIEWED JUL 2026
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