Halwa: A Diverse And Delicious Sweet With A History As Rich As Its Texture

Some of my fondest memories growing up have involved food. From dishes I loved as a girl, to desserts that attach themselves to my life’s many benchmarks, food has always been closely tied to emotions. And one of my greatest accompaniments has most definitely been halwa!

In India, every home cooks their own rendition of this dessert. Each prepares their unique recipe but one common thing that remains common is the generous helping of love. Halwa isn’t one recipe but an idea: a sweet, rich, cooked confection that travels well, adapts quickly, and makes itself at home wherever people have grain, fat, sweetener, and a reason to celebrate (or recover) from winter. Historically, the word itself originates from Arabic ḥalwā/ḥulw, meaning “sweetmeat/sweet,” and in Persian, ḥalwā functions as a broad, generic term for sweet dishes rather than a single, fixed dessert. 

Halwa, for Indians, is quite a superpower: it can show up as a decadent bowl of gajar ka halwa at a North-Indian wedding, as Iruttu Kadai Halwa which is a slab of chewy wheat halwa from Tirunelveli, a nutty, ghee-slicked kada prasad at a gurdwara, or as a sesame-and-sugar Halva/ Halvah, in a Middle-Eastern sweet shop. 

The Many Identities Of Halwa

Food historians generally trace halwa’s early written recipes to the medieval Islamic world, with documented versions appearing in 13th-century Arabic cookbooks such as Kitab al-Tabikh from Baghdad (The Book of Dishes), written by an Iraqi author called Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq. The mention of the dessert in ancient texts is a testament to its early popularity. 

According to food historian and author  Chef Sadaf Hussain, “An unnamed 13th-century cookbook from Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) talks about a candy-like halwa that is prepared using caramelised sugar, honey, sesame oil, and flour. It is then dusted  with rosewater and pistachios and cut into different shapes.” He adds that these documents portray the early version of halwa as a confection made from wheat, oil, and sugar that often formed a gelatinous texture.

Over time, empires and trade routes carried techniques, ingredients, and names across regions. One interesting story about the Ottoman Sultan, Süleiman the Magnificent (16th century), talks about his love for sweets and how he built a “house of halva” in his palace, where he made different versions of the dessert. 

Chef Hussain mentioned a sesame-based halwa that was prepared using tahini and was popularised by the Ottomans across their empire, to the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Halwa receives universal love for its adaptability. “It travelled to North Africa, Central Asia, and Europe with traders and migrants, and each region improvised the dessert to suit their own taste,” added Hussain. 

The result is why ‘halwa’ can mean a spoonable pudding in one place and a sliceable sweet in another: the term stayed broad on purpose, so local kitchens could keep rewriting it.

According to Chef Hussain, many early Indian writings also mention sweets that resemble halwa. “My favourite book, Manasollasa, which was published in the 12th century, talks about a semolina pudding called shali-anna, which is an early version of sooji halwa (now called kesari in South India),” he said. This implies that halwa had also arrived in India by the Middle Ages. 

In the Unani medical tradition, the term halwa not only refers to desserts but to herbal electuary-style preparations made with ingredients such as ghee, sugar, nuts, and botanicals. These formulations are useful to cure weakness, joint comfort, respiratory issues, and even offer warmth during winter. There’s a reason your nani often relies on this dessert  as a valid solution to exhaustion. In ancient South Asia, rich, sweet pastes often served as tonics—not always in the modern sense of nutrition or medicine, but in the traditional sense of providing warmth and promoting recovery.

Halwa-i-Gheekwar, a traditional Unani/Ayurvedic herbal confection, famous for its warming properties, is prepared using aloe vera (Gheekwar) as its key ingredient, and is combined with ghee, herbs, carrots, almonds, pumpkin seeds, and cardamom. It is used by Unani physicians for prophylactic and therapeutic purposes, as well as for its antioxidant properties. 

In the Indo-Persian medical world, halwa has also existed as a medicinal sweet paste—closer to an electuary than a dessert. An electuary, in general, is exactly this kind of preparation: powdered ingredients mixed into a sweet base for palatability.  In Ayurveda, such preparations that are meant to be licked are also called ‘lehya’. This lehya was prepared by binding botanicals and powders with something sweet and fatty (honey/sugar, ghee, sometimes milk solids) to ensure that it is easy to swallow.  

Thus, halwa has been treated as “medicine” in lived culture and many halwa-style preparations functioned as medicinal tonics.

India Makes It Its Own: A Dessert With A Thousand Accents

India is diverse, and its diversity is reflected in the myriad halwas that are affectionately cooked and served in households across homes and kitchens. 

Once halwa landed in Indian kitchens, it did what Indian food always does: it became diverse. Some versions follow the roast-flour-in-ghee logic (sooji, atta, besan), some are milk-reduction miracles (gajar), some sit in the lentil-and-labour category (moong dal), and others become region-specific signatures with their own cult followings.

In North India, sooji ka halwa (also called sheera) is the fast comfort classic. It is made with semolina roasted in ghee, cooked with sugar syrup or milk, and is often served on religious occasions.  

In Punjab and across parts of North India, gajar ka halwa turns carrots into a slow-cooked, milk-thickened sweetness. The tradition of preparing this variant goes back to the Dutch bringing in Afghan carrots to India in the 17th century. It became a Punjabi speciality when grated carrots were cooked in milk, ghee, and sugar until they turned into a soft fudge. 

Another popular type is moong dal ka halwa (made with moong/mung beans), which is made by slowly cooking ground moong dal in ghee and milk. It is praised for its deep, nutty flavour and smooth texture. It also requires soaking, grinding, and a long roast before it becomes that glossy, ghee-laced gold.

Across many homes, atta halwa is the darker, nuttier cousin—wheat flour roasted until it smells toasty, then sweetened and enriched. Besan halwa goes deeper still: gram flour cooked patiently in ghee until it turns fudgy and aromatic. 

According to Chef Hussain, “There is a different kind of halwa in each part of India.” Banana halwa, a chewy, toffee-like sweet, is popular in coastal Karnataka, while Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli halwa, created from wheat milk extract, is known for its difficult cooking process and having a shiny, ghee-soaked finish. Kozhikode halwa, which is also known as Calicut halwa or black halwa, is produced with rice flour or wheat, jaggery (unrefined cane sugar), and coconut oil. Karutha halwa (Kerala) leans dark and jaggery-rich, and across South Asia, sohan halwa takes a firmer, more confection-like form.

Halwa endures because it’s the perfect intersection of ritual and comfort. It’s flexible enough to be temple prasad or dinner-party dessert, humble enough for weeknight cravings, and rich enough to feel like a reward. It also makes climatic sense: in much of India, the craving for ghee, warmth, and slow-cooked sweetness spikes exactly when winter does. And maybe that’s Halwa’s real origin story—not just Persia or Arabia or a 13th-century cookbook, but the universal human instinct to say: it’s cold, life is hard, come sit…I’ll make something warm and sweet. What about a bowl of ghee-laden halwa? 

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