Among the vegetarian dishes cooked in the royal kitchen of Akbar, Abul Fazl has mentioned the following:

• Zard Birang was made of rice, sugar-candy and ghee. It could be prepared with or without almonds, pistachio, kishmish, saffron, ginger, cinnamon and cardamom.

• Khushke was a dish of simple rice without ghee and any other ingredient. It was saltish.

• Khichri was a regular dish in Akbar’s kitchen. It was made, as today, from split moong, rice and ghee.

• Sheerbing was prepared from wheat ground and ghee and spices and salt.

• Chickee was made of paste of ground wheat and one- tenth of ghee along with spices and salt.

• Badanjan was prepared using coconut, ghee, onion and spices.

• Pahet was prepared from skinned pulses like moong, mash, lentils, ghee and spices.

• Saag was made of spinach, fennel, ghee and spices.

• Halwa was a pudding prepared from wheat flour, sugar candy and ghee.

The staple food during the time of the Mughals consisted of wheat and rice, kabuli and black gram, millet and barley, linseed, fenugreek, mustard seed etc. Rice cost between 6 and 12 dams per mand. Ain-i-Akbari has mentioned the following varieties: Shli Mushkin (unhusked), Sukhdas, Donah Prashad, Samzirah, Shakar Chini (sugar candy). Rice formed the chief food in the east and the south. The Gujaratis preferred rice and curd. Jahangir has mentioned the food of Kashmiris in his memoirs. It consisted of boiled rice and boiled salted vegetables, chiefly a leafy plant known as karam. The people of the North, however, enjoyed chappatis of wheat, jowar and bajra. The middle classes enjoyed three miles a day while the poor managed to have light refreshments in the form of some parched pulses or other grains between two regular meals.

Jahangir, on his non-drinking days, would take lazizah, i.e. khichri prepared in Gujarati style. Various European travellers have mentioned that people in general enjoyed two chief meals and two breakfasts— one in the forenoon and another in the afternoon. The breakfast consisted of a variety of fruits and sweets, bread and butter, milk or curd. To make their food more tasty, they added spices, ghee and edible oil for the preparation of the pulses and vegetables. As accessories to meals, they made use of pappad, achar, lemon and conserves.

Thomas Roe, the English ambassador at the court of Jahangir, once received from the Kotwal of Burhanpur 20 dishes cooked in Indian fashion. The Portugese Sebvastian Manrique, a friar of the order of St. Augustine, who came during the time of Shahjahan, has given an interesting testimony about a banquet given by Asaf Khan to Shahjahan in 1641 in the city of Lahore. The hall was adorned with carpets "which covered the floor so as to form tables on the ground, as is the national custom, and also served in place of chair and couches." The food was brought in by a retinue of servants accompanied by four ‘lovely looking girls who came forward with implements for the ablution of hand of the royal guest.’

Manrique further adds: ‘I was astonished and surprised to see so much polite usage and good order in practice among such barbarians, while I was not less astonished at the abundance and diversity of the dishes and eatables, among which some were in European style, especially certain pastries, cakes and other sweet confections made by some slaves who had been with the Portugese.’ Sebastian Manrique also found the Indian rice far superior to the one available in Europe, particularly the scented variety known as jirsal (from zeera). It had extraordinary fineness and delicacy of flavour and retained its fragrance after it had been cooked.

Mughal emperors used to send special officers to various places in the country to buy the best ghee for the royal kitchen. Mir Saman was in charge of the royal household and it was his duty to provide the necessary things for the kitchen. Among the Rajputs, special significance was attached to the custom of dauna, sending the dish from which a chief had partaken to somebody whom he chose to favour and honour. In Mewar, the custom largely determined the legitimacy and the status of a person.