Dried Apricot Buying Guide: Red vs White vs Seedless Khubani
If you have only ever bought dried apricots from a supermarket shelf, the first bag of Kashmiri jardalu is a shock. They are small, wrinkled, brown or dull cream — nothing like the plump, glowing orange halves you were expecting. People regularly assume they have been sent old stock.
They haven't. The bright orange ones are the ones with something added.
Why real dried apricots are brown, not orange
Apricot flesh browns as it dries. That is just what fruit sugars do when exposed to air and sun — the same reason a cut apple goes brown on the counter. To stop that and keep the fruit orange, commercial drying uses sulphur dioxide (listed as E220, or “sulphited”).
Sulphur isn't exotic or illegal — it's a permitted preservative and the vast majority of dried apricots sold worldwide are treated with it. But it changes two things you should know about: the colour stops telling you anything about freshness, and some people react badly to sulphites, particularly anyone with asthma.
Sun-dried, untreated apricots look like dried fruit actually looks. Brown is the honest colour.
The three types, and who each suits
| Type | Look & texture | Best for |
|---|---|---|
|
Red jardalu (with stone) |
Deep reddish-brown, chewy, intensely sweet-tart | Eating as-is, soaking overnight, the strongest apricot flavour |
|
White jardalu (with stone) |
Pale cream to light tan, firmer, milder and less tangy | Anyone who finds red too sharp; traditional in Ladakh and Baltistan |
| Seedless khubani | Larger halves, softer, no stone to work around | Cooking, baking, kids, gift boxes, chopping into anything |
The stoned varieties are whole fruit dried with the pit still in. You eat around it, or soak and slip it out. It sounds inconvenient and is — but the fruit holds its flavour better with the stone in, which is why the traditional types are sold this way.
Sun-dried with the stone in — the sweet-tart variety most people mean by jardalu.
View product
Stone removed, softer halves — the one to pick for cooking, baking and gift boxes.
View productSix checks before you buy
- Colour. Brown, reddish-brown or cream. Bright uniform orange means sulphur treatment — fine if that's what you want, but ask.
- Give. Should be pliable and chewy. Rock hard means over-dried or old; sticky-wet means too much residual moisture and it will spoil.
- Dusting. A light natural sugar bloom is normal on sun-dried fruit. A thick syrupy coating is added sugar or glucose.
- Smell. Concentrated apricot, slightly tangy. A sharp chemical or match-like smell is sulphur.
- Uniformity. Sun-dried fruit varies in size and shade. Perfectly identical pieces are a sign of industrial processing, not quality.
- Loose pieces in the bag. A lot of broken bits and stones rattling loose means rough handling or old stock.
How to soak them
Soaking is what turns hard jardalu into something closer to fresh fruit. Cover with water at room temperature and leave 6–8 hours, or overnight. They swell, soften and the stone comes out easily. Keep the soaking water — it turns into a sweet apricot syrup worth using in a drink or over curd.
Quick version: 20 minutes in warm (not boiling) water gets you most of the way there.
Cooking with them
- Qubani ka meetha: the Hyderabadi dessert — soaked apricots simmered down with sugar, served with cream. Red jardalu is the right choice here.
- Meat dishes: a handful of apricots in a slow-cooked mutton or chicken gives the sweet-sour note that Kashmiri and Persian cooking both use.
- Baking and chutney: seedless, chopped. No soaking needed if there is liquid in the recipe.
- Breakfast: chopped into porridge, curd or soaked overnight oats.
Apricot kernels: one word of caution
Inside the stone is a kernel that is sold separately, sometimes marketed with strong health claims. Bitter apricot kernels contain amygdalin, which the body converts to cyanide, and food safety authorities including FSSAI and the EU have issued warnings about eating them in quantity. We do not sell them and we would not recommend buying them on the strength of internet claims. Eat the fruit; leave the kernel.
Storing them
Airtight container, cool dark cupboard. Sun-dried fruit without preservatives has a shorter window than sulphited fruit — expect a few months at room temperature, longer in the fridge, and up to a year frozen. If you see mould or smell fermentation, discard the lot rather than picking out pieces. Our dry fruit storage guide covers humidity, which matters more than temperature in most Indian homes.
If you're buying dried apricots online
Decide first whether you want the traditional stoned fruit or the convenient seedless halves — they are genuinely different products, not grades of the same one. Then check the colour question with the seller before ordering, because that is the one thing a product photo will not tell you honestly.
Red, white and seedless side by side, so you can compare before choosing.
Browse the rangeIf you want them for a gift box, the seedless ones photograph and travel better — see choosing dry fruits for a Kashmir gift box.