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The chat variants are all based on fried dough, with various other ingredients. The original chat is a mixture of potato pieces, crisp fried bread dahi vada or dahi bhalla, gram or chickpeas and tangy-salty spices, with sour home-made Indian chilly and saunth (dried ginger and tamarind sauce), fresh green coriander leaves and yogurt for garnish, but other popular variants included aloo tikkis or samosa (garnished with onion, coriander, hot spices and a dash of curd), bhel puri, dahi puri, panipuri, dahi vada, papri chat, and sev puri.

There are common elements among these variants including dahi, or yogurt chopped onions and coriander; Sev (thin dried yellow salty noodles); and chat masala, typically consisting of amchoor (dried mango powder), cumin, Kala Namak (rock salt), coriander, dried ginger, salt, black pepper, and red pepper. The ingredients are combined and served on a small metal plate or a banana leaf, dried and formed into a bowl.

Most chats originated in some parts of Uttar Pradesh in India, but they are now eaten all across the Indian Sub-continent. Some are results of cultural syncretism - for instance, pav bhaji (Bread/bun with cooked and mashed vegetables) reflects a Portuguese influence, in the form of a bun, and bhel puri and Sevpuri, which originated in Mumbai.

In cities where chat is popular, there are popular chathouses or dhabas, such as Mumbai's Chowpatty Beach. The chat specialities vary from city to city. chat from Lucknow,151 Azamgarh, Varanasi, Agra, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, and Mathura are famous throughout India. In Hyderabad, chat is mostly prepared by vendors hailing from Bihar, and is different in taste.