The name is used for a broad variety of recipes, generally a thick paste made from flour, butter, liquid oil, saffron, rosewater, milk, turmeric powder, and sweetened with sugar.

[8] The original name for the confection was Persian: روغن خورديگ, romanized: rōɣn khordīg, meaning "oil food".

[9][11] By the 9th century, the term was applied to numerous kinds of sweets, including the now-familiar sweetened cooked semolina or flour paste.

[14] Grain-based halva is made by toasting flour or cornstarch in oil, mixing it into a roux, and then cooking it with a sugary syrup.

Dishes made from wheat semolina include Suji ka Halva in India, Pakistan and irmik helvası in Turkey.

In both dishes, semolina is toasted in fat, either oil or butter, and then mixed with water or milk and sugar to achieve the desired flavor and consistency.

[15] Wheat-based Sōhan halvā in Northern India and Pakistan is a renowned delicacy made by combining wheat flour with milk, sugar, clarified butter, cardamom, saffron, and nuts such as almonds and pistachios.

The mixture is slow-cooked, allowing the sugar to caramelize, which gives Sōhan halvā its unique firm and brittle texture.

Multani halvā (Urdu: ملتانی حلوہ) from Pakistan is another wheat flour-based halva, but with a soft and moist texture.

Sesame halva is popular in the Balkans, Poland, the Middle East, and other areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

[2] Soapwort[16][17] (called ‘erq al halaweh in Arabic; çöven in Turkish), or egg white are added in some recipes to stabilize the oils in the mixture or create a distinctive texture for the resulting confection.

Other ingredients and flavorings, such as pistachio nuts, cocoa powder, orange juice, vanilla, or chocolate are often added to the basic tahini and sugar base.

It is made by slow-cooking grated carrots with milk, sugar, and ghee (clarified butter), often flavored with cardamom and garnished with nuts such as almonds, pistachios, or cashews.

Made primarily of wheat flour and sugar, the strands are continuously wrapped into a ball shape and then compressed.

One regional variant is from Sheki where Şəki halvası halva refers to a layered bakhlava style pastry filled with spiced-nut mix and topped by crisscrossed patterns of a red syrup made from saffron, dried carrot and beetroot.

[27] The town of Bhatkal in Coastal Karnataka is famous for its unique banana halwa which is infused with either whole cashews, pistachio or almonds.

[34] In Iran, halva (Persian: حلوا) usually refers to a related confection made from wheat flour and butter and flavored with saffron and rose water.