How to make dessert roti (with 5 ingredients and 10 minutes!)

Life will never be the same again.

Rebecca Nittolo

3 min read

May 3, 2024 - 10:21AM

Banana roti with condensed milk split screen hero

Confession time. I love the supermarket freezer aisle – it might even be my favourite aisle. Not because it houses all my favourite foods, but because it is a treasure trove of surprise food products that I didn’t even know existed (the International aisle comes in a close second).

Recently, I was overjoyed to discover (on the top shelf of a Coles freezer) something I hadn’t seen before: frozen roti paratha. It turns out I wasn’t the first person on the team to recently find this little delight. Jade, our Video and Social Manager, had also bought it a few times.

Jade was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and says that “eating roti was a huge part of my childhood”… but being able to eat it in Australia has always involved her going to a restaurant because making it from scratch required a bit too much effort (and skill to do it properly!)

What is roti?

Although Jade’s childhood experiences were always of Malaysian roti, it actually originated in Indian cuisine. Somewhere between pastry and flatbread, it’s flaky and buttery perfection, so it’s easy to understand why Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand have all adopted it as their own. (There’s even a Caribbean version too!)

According to Jade, this version we discovered in Coles is “close to the real deal”.

Where can I buy frozen roti?

The Katoomba brand of roti (Jade’s favourite) can be found in the freezer aisle in Coles. It only cost her $11 for a pack of 15, so it’s a bargain too. They come in 20 and 30 packs as well.

We’ve occasionally spotted frozen roti in specialised grocers in the past, but we were beyond excited to find it in Coles.

How to cook supermarket roti

It gets better, because this roti is super-quick to cook – place it from frozen (no thawing required) directly into a hot pan. Within 1-2 minutes, it’s golden and delicious. Flip, give it another minute and serve.

The first time I tried it, I simply rolled it up and used it to scoop up a steaming bowl of dahl with my hands.

Other things to make with frozen roti

Since then, I’ve progressed to marinated paneer or chicken tikka pieces cooked on the BBQ or in the air fryer, using the roti as a wrap. Add crunchy iceberg lettuce, red onion and cucumber, a dollop of natural yoghurt and a glob of mango chutney: dinner is done.

But Jade has instead resurrected her favourite childhood dessert, using the frozen roti to recreate it in record time.

How to make cheat’s dessert roti

Jade had the genius idea of stuffing the roti with fresh banana to make a cheat’s version of a dessert called ‘roti pisang’.

Instead of cooking from frozen (as per the packet instructions), she thawed the roti slightly to make them easier to fill with banana. This allowed her to place one roti in a hot pan, top with sliced banana and then place another on top, pinching the edges to seal it and make a pastry-esque parcel. Adding butter to the sizzling pan gave the roti a caramelised, golden crust that perfectly complements the gooey banana and makes it more authentic.

Jade finishes this dessert off with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk and sugar. She says “it gives this dish the crunch and sweetness that I remember… but you don’t have to add sugar if you don’t want it too sweet” She advises to “serve immediately after cooking, piping hot”.

We’ll do as we’re told, as soon as we’ve hit the freezer aisle.