You may have noticed lots of “food hacks” on the internet. This is taking an existing product and jazzing it up – for example, using frozen prata instead of puff pastry to make pizza, pies or tarts. For starters, check out these frozen prata recipes for easy Apple pie puffs and Cantonese egg tarts!

To discover which frozen prata works best for food hacks, let’s fry ‘n’ try three popular brands available in Singapore. You can read this review – or watch our video review here:

How our review works 

We tested three brands of frozen roti prata and asked: How do they fry? How do they bake? And how do they taste?

Spring Home Roti Paratha x 5 pieces, $2.50  
Chinatown Roti Prata x 5 pieces, $2.40 
FairPrice Roti Prata x 6 pieces, $2.05 

*Prices are correct as of June 2020

We heated a nonstick pan to a high heat before dropping in frozen prata. Each was fried for about three minutes on each side until perfectly golden and crispy. 

Spring Home Roti Paratha

  • Size and width of a side plate
  • Crispy, flaky and light 
  • Tears apart easily and reveals a few layers of pastry
  • Tastes slightly sweeter and more buttery, so it suits desserts 

Chinatown Roti Prata

  • Smallest in size 
  • Strong onion taste
  • Savoury flavour makes it great to dip into curry
  • Good as a wrap for kebabs or BBQ meats

FairPrice Roti Prata

  • Largest size
  • Firmest and most bread-like 
  • More layers of pastry
  • Extra thickness makes it the most likely to char, so flip this prata more often to avoid burning it
  • Taste is subtle, making it a versatile base for both savoury and sweet options

Can frozen prata substitute puff pastry? 

We cut one prata from each brand in half, filled each pastry with the same apple pie filling and glazed them with the same egg wash. All six apple pie puffs were baked at 200 C, for around 20 minutes. Get the full recipe here!  

Spring Home Roti Paratha Apple Puff

  • Puffs up into a lovely pillow 
  • Tastes light and flaky
  • Appetising crispy sound when you cut it
  • Inside is well cooked
  • Sweetish prata is a natural choice for a sweet dessert

Chinatown Roti Prata Apple Puff

  • Puffs up well
  • Crispy bite
  • Surprise! Onion-flavoured prata enhances apple filling to make a sweet and savoury alternative.

FairPrice Roti Prata Apple Puff 

  • Puffs up well 
  • Crisp sound when you cut the puff
  • Prata is thicker and larger, so it’s a filling snack
  • Inside of the pastry is slightly less cooked, because this prata has more layers.
  • To make pies, it may be best to bake this brand for a few minutes longer.

Real Life Review:

Spring Home Frozen Roti Paratha, Chinatown Frozen Roti Prata and  FairPrice Frozen Roti Prata

3 Must-Know Facts:
  1. To make prata crispy and flaky, it’s important to pre-heat your frying pan. Then drop in prata while it is still frozen.
  2. Keep frozen prata in the freezer until the last minute. If it thaws completely it gets too sticky and soft to use easily. 
  3. Flip frozen prata often when you fry it to help layers puff up.
Overall Review:

Frozen prata is super versatile. It’s firmer than traditional puff pastry, but it’s already rolled out, and cut into a manageable size. This makes it easy to use as a base for pizza or curry puffs. All the brands of prata we tried also made great apple puffs. So it’s worth experimenting with making sweet treats as well. 


Reviewer: Trish Caddy is a trained restaurant chef and a food trend analyst. Raised in Singapore and England, she is proud of her Cantonese and British heritage and loves all kinds of Asian and Singaporean cuisine and fusion food. You can see more of her food experiments at @dishheads on Instagram.