Dalia porridge
Preparation Time
5 minutes
Cooking Time
15 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Breakfast
Serves 3
Key Ingredients
- Jaggery powder
About This Recipe
Dalia is wheat that has been cracked small, and in North Indian homes it is cooked soft in milk as a breakfast broken wheat porridge; the tiny grains cook through in minutes, so nothing needs soaking. This version roasts the dalia briefly in ghee, then simmers it in a mix of water and milk and sweetens at the end with jaggery powder. One 240 ml cup of dalia weighs about 200 g and makes the three bowls.
Roasting first deepens the wheat flavour and keeps the grains from turning pasty. The porridge is creamy but not set, with a soft grain in every spoon; it thickens as it cools.
For a savoury bowl, leave out the milk and jaggery: roast the dalia as above and set it aside, saute a chopped onion, carrot and a few peas in 1 more teaspoon of ghee, add 4 cups of water and a teaspoon of salt, bring to a boil, stir in the dalia and simmer covered for 10 minutes. That is the same method as the dalia upma, with a cup more water so it cooks softer. If the porridge is for a baby under two, keep the jaggery out: the ICMR-NIN Dietary Guidelines for Indians say added sugar, which includes jaggery, must be kept out for children below 2 years, and to limit salt in complementary food preparations, so leave the salt out of the savoury bowl for a baby. Check with your paediatrician before giving a baby anything new.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Porridge
- Wheat dalia (broken wheat) — 1 cup
- Water — 1 1/2 cups
- Milk (plus a little extra to thin at the table) — 2 1/2 cups
- Ghee — 1 tsp
- Jaggery powder — 2 tbsp
- Cardamom Powder — 1/4 tsp
To serve
- Almonds, chopped — 6 pieces
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Serving Suggestions
Serve warm, with chopped almonds or banana slices on top and a glass of milk alongside for a fuller breakfast. The savoury version is good with curd and a squeeze of lemon. The dalia recipes roundup has the rest of the ways to cook this grain, and the dalia khichdi is the one-pot lunch cousin of this bowl.
Tips for Cooking Dalia porridge
Use a pan with a heavy base; thin pans scorch milk. Roast the dalia before any liquid goes in, and stop at a pale toast, since browned grains taste burnt. The porridge thickens quickly once off the flame, so take it off a little looser than you want it. Leftover porridge keeps, covered, for two days in the fridge.
Chef’s Note
The jaggery goes in off the flame at the very end, so the milk stays smooth. One of the three bowls comes to about 278 kcal, 7.4 g of protein and 5.9 g of fibre, almost all of it from the dalia; the milk in the bowl adds more on top of that figure.
Per serving (approx.): 278 kcal, protein 7.4 g, carbs 54 g, fat 2.6 g, fibre 5.9 g. Computed from IFCT 2017 / USDA values for the listed quantities. Measures: 1 cup = 240 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml.
Happy Cooking
!!
ByCOWBERRY
Jul 01, 2026
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