Vegetable upma
Preparation Time
15 minutes
Cooking Time
25 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Breakfast
Serves 4
Key Ingredients
- Ghee
About This Recipe
Upma is the everyday South Indian breakfast: rava (semolina) roasted in ghee, then steamed with a tempering of mustard, dal and curry leaves. Rava is a refined product of wheat, so the per-serving figures below use whole wheat values, which overstate the fibre a little.
The method turns on two points: roast the rava until it smells toasted, and pour the water at a full boil, slowly, while you stir. Three and a half cups of boiling water to one and a half cups of roasted rava gives a soft, spoonable upma; less water gives a drier, grainier one. The vegetables go in before the rava so they soften first, cut small so they cook in the same few minutes.
Any firm vegetables work here: swap in capsicum, sweet corn or cabbage in the same amount. Roasted rava is also the base of sweets, and our rava ladoo recipe uses it the same way, roasted and fragrant, on the sweet side of the table.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Upma
- Rava (semolina) — 1 1/2 cup
- Ghee — 2 tbsp
- Chana Dal — 1 tbsp
- Mustard Seeds — 1 tsp
- Urad dal — 1 tsp
- Curry Leaves — 1 sprig
- Green chilli, slit — 2 nos
- Ginger, grated — 1 tsp
- Hing (asafoetida) powder — 1/4 tsp
- Turmeric Powder — 1/4 tsp
- Mixed vegetables (carrot, beans, peas, onion), finely chopped — 1 1/2 cups
- Salt — 1 tsp
- Hot water — 3 1/2 cups
- Lemon juice — 1 tbsp
- Fresh coriander leaves, chopped — 2 tbsp
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Serving Suggestions
Serve the upma hot with coconut chutney, a spoon of sev or a squeeze of extra lemon; a cup of filter coffee finishes it the South Indian way. A bowl of upma holds its shape as it cools, so it travels well in a tiffin. If any is left, loosen it with a splash of hot water before reheating.
Tips for Cooking Vegetable upma
Roast the rava until it smells toasted and keep stirring, or the bottom scorches. The water must be at a full boil when it goes in, poured slowly while you stir; warm water is what turns upma to paste. Cover and leave it alone for the last five minutes, then fluff with a fork. Watery vegetables give up liquid as they cook, so hold back a quarter cup of water with frozen ones.
Chef’s Note
Upma waits for no one: the water must be boiling, the rava roasted and the bowls ready, because the last five minutes cannot be stretched. A bowl comes to about 319 kcal, worked out with whole wheat values standing in for rava, so the fibre figure reads higher than rava truly has.
Per serving (approx.): 319 kcal, protein 8.6 g, carbs 50 g, fat 8.8 g, fibre 8.9 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
May 16, 2026
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