As stated earlier, much of the food consumed by people in Patna is vegetarian and very healthy. The staple food is “bhat, dal, roti, tarkari(vegetables) and achar”, prepared basically from rice, lentils, wheat flour, vegetables, and pickle. They use uncooked sprouts soaked in water and consumed with choora bhunja and Makhana. The famous "jhal moori"(puffed rice with sprouts and many more incredients) is a famous snack. Traditionally, mustard oil and ghee has been the popular cooking medium. "Khichdi", the broth of rice and lentils, seasoned with spices, and served with several accompanying items like thick curd, chutney, pickles (more than 5000 varieties of pickles are prepared by women in a year), papads, ghee (clarified butter) and chokha (boiled mashed potatoes, seasoned with finely cut onions, green chilies) constitutes the lunch for most people of Bihar on Saturdays. People want varieties in food so there are more than six type of vegetable dishes prepared daily with each meal. Salad with cabbage, raw peas, onions, tomatoes, cucumber, coriander eaves, beet root, carrot and fresh winter vegetables are served in huge Thali's along with the food. Milk is boiled until it reduces to half and then thick curd is made from it. Different type of stuffed parotha is also common. Other dishes which are predominantly used in Patna is Sattu (flour of fried grams). There are many other dishes which is made with sattu like litti, Sattu ki Roti etc. In rural areas of Patna, doughed sattu is being consumed with some salt and pickels. There is large variety of sweet delicacies. Unlike Oriya and Bengali sweets which are soaked in syrups made of sugar and are therefore wet, sweets of Patna are mostly dry. Some of them are Laktho, Khurma,Balushahi,Anarasa, Khaja, Motichoor ka Ladoo, Kala Jamun, Kesaria Peda, Parwal ka Mithai, Khubi ka Lai, Belgrami, Tilkut, Thekua and Chena Murki. Some of them owe their origin to towns in the vicinity of Patna: Khaja from Silao Nalanda, Ladoo from Maner, Kala Jamun from Vikram, Khubi ka Lai from Barh, Tilkut and Kesaria Peda from Gaya ,balushahi from Harnaut and Chena Murki from Koelwar. Descendants of the original family members of the cooks, called halwais in the local language, have migrated to urban Patna and authentic sweet delicacies are now available in the city itself.
There are several other traditional snacks and savouries:
• Pua, prepared from a mixture of powdered rice, milk, ghee (clarified butter), sugar and honey and its variant Malpua
• Pittha, steam cooked, mixture of powdered rice
• Chiwra, beaten rice, served with a coat of creamy curd and sugar or jaggery
• Makhana (a kind of water fruit) is prepared from lotus seeds and is taken puffed or as kheer, prepared with milk and sugar
• Sattu, powdered baked gram, is a high energy giving food. It is taken mixed with water or with milk. Sometimes, sattu mixed with spices are used to prepare stuffed 'chapattis', locally called as 'makuni roti'
• Litti/Choka, a fast food item that can be prepared with minimum of utensils by people who away on tour. It is prepared with Sattu and Wheat flour and taken with mashed potato and brinjals.
• Dhuska, a deep fried item prepared from a mixture of powdered rice and ghee but is salted
• Kadhi Bari, these fried soft dumplings made of besan (gram flour) are cooked in a spicy gravy of yogurt and besan. It goes very well over plain rice.
• Halwa, prepared by frying sooji(semolina) till reddish and then mixing sugar and boiling with water till thickening.