Padma Lakshmi Just Made Chaat-Chos and Called It Her "Fantasy Snack"

If you want a snack that hits all the flavor profiles, from spicy to sweet to tangy, Padma Lakshmi has got you covered. The cookbook author and former Top Chef host just shared her “fantasy snack” on Instagram, and after seeing her make it, I think it might be mine too! Chaat-chos, a term coined by Lakshmi, are the ingenious mashup of Mexican-inspired nachos and chaat, which is Indian street food. The chaat-chos promise to be crunchy, bold, fresh and cheesy—here’s how Lakshmi makes it.

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“Chaat is Indian street food traditionally eaten from a cart,” writes Lakshmi in the Instagram post. It consists of a mélange of foods, flavors and textures that can include fresh or cooked fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes, fried dough, chips, chiles, herbs and spices and more. Each bite includes multiple flavorful components, with the resulting feeling that every bite is an explosion of “spicy, sweet, tangy, hot and tart” flavors in your mouth, according to Lakshmi.

When Padma started eating nachos as a young girl in California, she quickly noted the parallels between the Mexican dish and her favorite Indian street eats. With the “crunch of the tortilla chips, the wonderful gooey saltiness of cheese, topped with cold, tart, spiky pico de gallo, the sour punch from the lime, the heat from the chiles,” she saw nachos as a Mexican version of chaat. It was inevitable, then, that her most-loved chaat ingredients would feel right at home atop a platter of cheesy chips. Enter chaat-chos—and my dinner inspiration for Saturday night!

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To make chaat-chos, Padma starts with a base of tortilla chips topped with melted cheese. She then piles on a mix of inviting and flavor-forward ingredients, including boiled potatoes, chickpeas, red onion, green mango, pomegranate seeds and hot green chile. Lakshmi leaves the seeds in the chile, but you could take them out if you prefer something milder. Next, she seasons the dish with a dusting of Kashmiri chili powder and a chaat masala spice blend (try Lakshmi’s Indian Summer Masala blend). She then finishes the dish with some date and tamarind chutney, an herbaceous mint chutney, pink Himalayan salt and fresh cilantro.

"I always thought that Mexican food and Indian food had a lot in common," Padma says in the Instagram video, citing ingredients like mangoes and chiles that are native to both cuisines. Upon digging into her colorful and creative snack, she couldn’t help but exclaim, "It's really good!" And after hearing her describe them as "tangy and spicy, a little sweet and crunchy, and cheesy, and herbaceous and delicious," I can only begin to imagine how good they are. With a dish that packs so much flavor, texture and aromatics in every bite, delicious might be an understatement!