Sanjana Modha – Award-Winning Food Content Creator: I’m a digital content creator, specialising in Indian cuisine and recipes from my British Indian heritage and East African family background. I’m most active on social media, where I share videos and recipes for the food I love to cook.
I write my recipes as well as film, photograph and edit my content from start to finish, on every platform from YouTube and Instagram, to TikTok and Facebook.
My total social media following is in excess of 300,000 people with a passion for spice. It’s my joy to teach people to cook, whatever their skill level or background. My food is accessible and available for all. I have been food blogging for 15 years (www.sanjanafeasts.co.uk).
I’m currently crowdfunding my debut cookbook, Sanjana Feasts with publisher Unbound. My recipes and work have been featured in Delicious Magazine, Vogue India, Tastemade, Grazia, Elle, The Bookseller and Stylist.
Born to vegetarian parents, I have followed a lacto-vegetarian diet my whole life. Growing up in a meat-free home, with parents who love to cook, always kept meals satisfying and delicious.
Both my grandfathers were chefs in East Africa, so a passion for good food is a family trait I’m immensely proud of. We cook warming daals, curries, Indian and African snacks, as well as experiment with new dishes. Indian-inspired pasta, tandoori pizza and spicy shepherd’s pie are mainstays in our family home.
Throughout my lifetime, I’ve seen a visible shift in the Western understanding of what Indian food is. It’s gone from curry house creations, to an exploration of regional food, to fusion cuisine and more recently, an appreciation of street food and casual dining.
Today, Indian food is a cacophony of all these elements and more. With each dish in this book, my aim is to warm your soul with classic Indian flavours, as well as introduce fresh and exciting new meal ideas for every day.
About Sanjana Feasts: Special subjects
Indian cuisine Food of the British South Asian diaspora Indian sweets and bread recipes Egg-free & vegan baking
Regular work
I was previously a brand ambassador for Alpro and undertake paid partnership work for multiple brands across my social media platforms. These typically consist of product placements in original recipe videos.
Advisory boards / Awards
Winner – SHE Awards, Outstanding Culinary Skills, 2021 Finalist – Asian Media Awards, Best Blog 2020 Shortlisted – Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2016
Commercial interests
I am open to brand ambassador roles, paid partnerships across social media, recipe writing and features for magazines and newspapers.
Inspired by beautiful ingredients, people and stories, my passion lies in creating Asian vegetarian soul food recipes for the way we eat today. My love of food began with the traditional South Asian dishes I ate growing up as a first generation Brit.
Very often it was daal (lentils), bhaat (rice), shaak (vegetable curry) and rotli (chapatis) on the menu. My parents were African-born immigrants whose ancestors came from Gujarat, on the Kathiawar peninsula in western India.
My family’s culture has taught me to believe is that food transcends borders and that a bowl of good daal can fix anything.
My Recipes
I’ve been curious about vegetarian food ever since I could see over the top of our cooker. I hope to share with you the feelings of excitement I had when I rolled my first wonky chapattis with miniature kitchen utensils that looked like they’d been manufactured in toy town.
I’d use my hot pink chapatti board and rolling pin to make terrible-tasting rotlis which my mum would cook and my pa would wolf down with gusto, whilst telling me I was a fabulous chef even though they were utterly dreadful. And that was all it took – I had discovered my love of Indian food.