Lassi is a chilled yogurt drink from Punjab and across North India and Pakistan: plain yogurt (dahi) whisked with a little water until frothy, then either salted with roasted cumin, sweetened with sugar and cardamom, or blended with mango. It’s thicker and richer than Turkey’s ayran or Iran’s doogh, and it’s drunk with meals or on its own in hot weather.
Three Classic Lassis
- Salted (namkeen) lassi: 1 cup yogurt, ¾ cup cold water, ¼ tsp salt, ½ tsp roasted cumin powder, a few mint leaves; a pinch of black salt (kala namak) adds a traditional sulfurous note. The recipe card below.
- Sweet (meethi) lassi: 1 cup yogurt, ½ cup cold water or milk, 2–3 tbsp sugar, ¼ tsp cardamom; optionally rose water or a few saffron threads soaked in warm milk.
- Mango (aam) lassi: 1 cup yogurt, 1 cup ripe mango pulp (fresh or canned Alphonso or Kesar), ¼ cup cold milk, sugar to taste and a pinch of cardamom.
For all three: blend or whisk hard for a minute until frothy, taste and adjust, and serve cold. Traditionally the yogurt is churned with a wooden whisk (madhani) for a tall layer of foam.
Homemade Dahi
Lassi is best with thick, fresh, mildly tangy yogurt. To make dahi, heat whole milk to 82–85°C (180–185°F) for a few minutes, cool it to 40–45°C (104–113°F), stir in 2 tablespoons of live yogurt per litre, and keep it warm and undisturbed for 6–8 hours until set; then chill. In India, dahi is often set from the previous batch, and traditional household dahi carries a mix of lactic acid bacteria – mainly Lactobacillus and Streptococcus – that varies with the milk, the pot and the starter (Tigga et al., 2025). See our homemade yogurt guide for step-by-step methods.
Live Cultures and Lactose
Lassi made from live-culture yogurt contains the yogurt’s bacteria. In the US, yogurt labeled with “live and active cultures” must have at least 10 million live bacteria per gram at manufacture, and yogurt heat-treated after culturing must say it doesn’t contain them (FDA) – so check your yogurt, and note that bottled lassi may be heat-treated. Live yogurt cultures help digest the lactose in yogurt; the European Food Safety Authority accepted that claim for yogurt with at least 108 live cultures per gram (EFSA, 2010), which is why many people who are lactose intolerant tolerate yogurt better than milk.
Lassi vs Chaas
Chaas (also called buttermilk or mattha) is thinner: yogurt diluted with much more water, usually salted and spiced, and traditionally the liquid left after churning butter. Lassi is thicker and can be sweet or salted.
More yogurt drinks and smoothies: mango smoothies and kefir smoothies.