Puttu
Preparation Time
16 minutes
Cooking Time
20 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Breakfast
Serves 4
Key Ingredients
- Sona masoori rice flour
About This Recipe
Puttu is a steamed rice breakfast: rice flour dampened to a crumb, layered with grated coconut inside a cylindrical mould and steamed over a pot until the steam finds its way through. The result is a soft, crumbly column that breaks apart under a spoon, mild enough to carry curry or a spoon of sugar.
The technique is in the wetting. The flour must feel like wet sand: dry enough to stay loose in the tube, damp enough to bind when pressed. Water added too fast forms lumps that steam into hard pockets; too little and the puttu falls out of the mould in crumbs. The coconut is layered in, never mixed through, so each bite alternates flour and coconut, and the ghee goes on at the end.
Sona masoori rice flour is the base here; the grain is a medium-grain rice. Red rice puttu in English simply means the same recipe made with red rice flour. The appam is another rice breakfast, and our guide to chawal (rice) covers the grain.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Dough
- Sona masoori rice flour — 2 cups
- Salt — 1/2 tsp
- Water, for the dough — 3/4 cup
Steaming
- Water, for the steamer base — 2 cups
Layering and serving
- Fresh coconut, grated — 3/4 cup
- Ghee — 1 tbsp
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Serving Suggestions
Serve warm with kadala (black chickpea) curry and a banana, or with vegetable stew and pappadam. Puttu with sugar and grated coconut is the simple sweet version, and leftover puttu keeps up to two days in the fridge; a minute in the steamer softens it again.
Tips for Cooking Puttu
The flour must feel like wet sand: damp enough to clump when pressed, dry enough to stay loose in the tube. Layer the flour and coconut without pressing down, so steam can rise through the column. The puttu is done when a steady white plume rises from the top, about 7 minutes. Serve at once, because puttu firms as it cools.
Chef’s Note
The wetting is the whole skill: sprinkle the water over the flour and rub it in with your fingertips, never pour. A serving of two pieces comes to about 248 kcal with 4.8 g of protein and 1.7 g of fibre, roughly 124 kcal per piece; the coconut layered through the puttu is not counted.
Per serving (approx.): 248 kcal, protein 4.8 g, carbs 47 g, fat 4.1 g, fibre 1.7 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 28, 2026
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