If you love fermented foods and understand the immense benefits they bring to your health, you should be making Idli, a five-ingredient food that originated in south India and has dug roots in kitchens across the rest of India and in Indian kitchens around the world. South Indian dishes popularized by restaurants, like dosa, adai, sambar, and pongal, are usually immensely healthy. And that’s more true of idli than almost any of these other foods. This porous, fluffy white disc could easily be the healthiest food in the world and it is made of two basic and very healthy building blocks – rice and lentils. Eaten by itself, an idli tastes bland. But served with a sambar and a green coconut chutney, it becomes one of the most delicious foods you will ever eat. This is also food for everyone–and anytime. Gluten-free? You can’t do better than an idli with its perfect-protein combination. Trying to lose weight? Idlis are extremely low-calorie, fat-free and probiotic and can be great for weight loss. Sick? An idli will nurture your digestive system right back to health. Picky eater? No kid can resist a soft little moon to dunk into creamy, savory, green coconut chutney. And you can eat an idli at any time – it makes a delicious south Indian breakfast, lunch or dinner. There are many kinds of idlis, but the recipe I have for you today is for a basic Idli – the only way Idli was eaten before people started adding oats or cream of wheat or whatever to gild its perfection. And while I’m just as guilty as the next cook of improvising, this is also the idli recipe that gets made most in my home, because you never really can best a classic, can you? Making an idli sounds simple enough, and making an idli batter is very similar to making a dosa batter. Both are made with rice and lentils, and both are typically fermented. But while a dosa is cooked into a crisp, golden crepe on a griddle, an idli is cooked by steaming it in a special mold. The proportions of the ingredients have to be balanced just right so you get an idli that sets up and solidifies perfectly when you steam it without becoming hard or dense. You can rest assured you will get perfect results with this recipe because I’ve done all the hard work for you. If you follow instructions carefully, and make sure you use all of the ingredients in the exact proportions and follow the right times for soaking your rice and lentils and fermenting the batter, you can have the perfect idlis and eat them too. You need just five ingredients for this idli recipe, including two kinds of rice. Some Indian recipes use idli rava instead of rice–a kind of coarse-ground semolina made with rice flour. This idli recipe is healthier, because you can make the idli batter recipe using brown rice. I add the brown rice in combination with the parboiled rice that’s typically used for making idli batter, and there’s tons of healthfulness added to an already nutritious recipe with no loss in flavor or texture. I also toss in a handful of flattened rice or poha, which I told you about not long ago in this Kande Pohe post, because it greatly improves the texture and fluffiness of the idli. You also need the fenugreek seeds to help the good bacteria thrive and flourish. Check to get new recipe updates by email.
What to serve with idli
Any kind of chutney or sambar is awesome. Here are some more suggestions:
Parboiled rice. This is the kind available at the Indian store, not the kind sold in supermarkets here in the United States. The rice is sometimes labeled idli rice. Brown rice (white rice is fine too). Use any rice you have on hand, including basmati rice. Black gram lentils or urad dal Flattened rice or poha/aval Fenugreek or methi seeds You don’t need to add salt to the idli recipe although you can if you want to. Add it just before you steam the idli.
Coconut chutney Onion chutney Roasted red pepper chutney Onion sambar White pumpkin sambar
I used the coconut chutney this time. Now here is the recipe for a really delicious, fluffy, amazing idli that’ll go right to the top of your list of south Indian breakfast favorites.
Frequently asked questions
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