Dalia upma
Preparation Time
10 minutes
Cooking Time
20 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Breakfast
Serves 3
Key Ingredients
- Ghee (1 tbsp to roast the dalia, 1 tbsp to temper)
About This Recipe
Upma made from broken wheat (dalia) is the whole-grain cousin of rava upma: the cracked wheat is roasted first, then steamed in water so the grains stay separate instead of turning into porridge. Roasting matters twice over here, for flavour and for texture, and a ghee roast does both at once.
This version follows the classic ratio: one 240 ml cup of dalia, about 200 g, cooked in three cups of water. The water goes in boiling, the dalia goes in roasted, and a covered cook of eight to ten minutes on low leaves the grains plump and separate, with a short rest to finish them. The tempering of ghee, mustard, cumin, urad dal and curry leaves is cooked in the same kadai, and the onion, carrot and peas soften in it before the water goes in.
Leave the vegetables out for a plain dalia upma, or swap the carrot and peas for beans and capsicum; the water stays the same. The same grain cooked softer with green moong becomes dalia khichdi, the one-pot lunch of the same kitchen.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Upma
- Wheat dalia (broken wheat) — 1 cup
- Water (hot) — 3 cups
Tempering
- Ghee (1 tbsp to roast the dalia, 1 tbsp to temper) — 2 tbsp
- Black Mustard Seeds — 1/2 tsp
- Urad dal (split black gram) — 1 tsp
- Cumin Seeds — 1 tsp
- Dry curry leaves — 8 leaves
- Ginger, finely chopped — 1 tsp
- Green chilli, slit — 2 pieces
Vegetables
- Onion, finely chopped — 1 medium
- Carrot, finely chopped — 1 small
- Green Peas — 1/4 cup
- Salt — 1 tsp
- Lemon juice — 1 tsp
To finish
- Fresh coriander leaves, chopped — 2 tbsp
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Serving Suggestions
Serve hot with a squeeze of lemon and a little coconut chutney or plain curd alongside; it packs well for lunchboxes and stays good until noon. The dalia recipes roundup collects the rest of the ways to cook the grain, from breakfasts to desserts.
Tips for Cooking Dalia upma
Drain the washed dalia really well; wet grains roast slowly and steam instead of toasting. Use boiling water and add it all at once, then cover and do not stir more than twice, or the upma turns sticky. Any upma left over will hold for two days in the fridge; warm it again in a pan, adding a splash of water.
Chef’s Note
Roast the dalia until you can smell it before you add a drop of water; that toasting is what keeps the grains separate and gives upma its depth. One plate of this upma, a third of the pot, comes to about 318 kcal and 5.9 g of fibre, and the ghee supplies most of the fat, the dalia nearly everything else.
Per serving (approx.): 318 kcal, protein 7.2 g, carbs 46 g, fat 11 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 02, 2026
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