Moong dal porridge
Preparation Time
35 minutes
Cooking Time
20 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Breakfast
Serves 2
Key Ingredients
- Green moong split (chilka moong dal)
About This Recipe
Porridge here means dal cooked well past the dal stage, until it is thick, soft and eaten with a spoon. The everyday Indian version is plain moong dal with salt and a ghee and cumin tempering, the kind of soft dal bowl that doubles as a first food for a baby. This recipe uses green moong split with the skin on, which keeps a little texture and a nuttier taste; yellow moong dal gives a paler, creamier bowl.
Stir jaggery into the hot pot for a sweet green gram porridge with the same soft texture, keeping one bowl plain before sweetening the rest. A baby's bowl is that plain one, thinned with a little hot water: the ICMR-NIN dietary guidelines say no added sugar for children under two years, and the moong dal for babies page sets out how to serve dal month by month.
Whole green moong (sabut) makes a chewier porridge: soak the beans 8 to 12 hours, then pressure cook 3 whistles with about 2.5 cups of water per cup of beans, or simmer them 25 to 30 minutes in an open pot, until a bean crushes between two fingers. Split dal, as in this recipe, needs only the 30-minute soak and about 15 minutes of simmering.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
For the porridge
- Green moong split (chilka moong dal) — 1/2 cup
- Water (2.5 cups for the pot, the rest to adjust) — 3 cups
- Turmeric Powder — 1/4 tsp
- Salt — 1/2 tsp
For the tempering
- Ghee — 2 tsp
- Cumin Seeds — 1/2 tsp
- Hing (asafoetida) powder — 1 pinch
- Ginger, grated — 1 tsp
- Green chilli, slit — 1 piece
For the sweet version
- Jaggery powder — 2 tbsp
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Serving Suggestions
Eat the savoury bowl hot with a little extra ghee on top, a squeeze of lime and a papad on the side; a bowl of curd makes it a fuller meal. The sweet bowl needs nothing beyond itself. Leftover porridge keeps up to two days in the fridge, and it thickens there, so loosen it with hot water as you reheat. More dishes from the same dal sit in the moong dal recipe roundup.
Tips for Cooking Moong dal porridge
Soak the full 30 minutes: split moong that skips the soak takes longer to cook and softens unevenly. Keep the simmer gentle and covered, or the dal froths up and boils over. Cook the porridge a little looser than you want to eat it, because it thickens quickly once off the heat. Salt early, when the water goes in, so the seasoning reaches the dal rather than just the surface.
Chef’s Note
The skin on split green moong gives this porridge its gentle bite; yellow dal collapses into a smoother, creamier one. Mash a few spoonfuls against the side of the pan for body, but leave most grains whole. A bowl comes to about 208 kcal and 11.9 g of protein, nearly all of it from the dal, with 4.7 g of fibre.
Per serving (approx.): 208 kcal, protein 12 g, carbs 26 g, fat 5.7 g, fibre 4.7 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
Sep 04, 2026
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