Ven pongal
Preparation Time
10 minutes
Cooking Time
21 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Breakfast
Serves 4
Key Ingredients
- Sona masoori rice
About This Recipe
Ven pongal is a savoury breakfast porridge, the salty counterpart to the sweet sakkarai pongal. Rice and moong dal are cooked together until they collapse into a soft, creamy mash, then finished with a tempering of black pepper, cumin and ginger crackled in ghee.
The ratio is the recipe: two parts rice to one part moong dal. The dal is dry-roasted first, just until it smells nutty and before it is washed. Rinse the roasted dal with the rice so both go into the cooker clean, and cook them together in one pot. The tempering goes in only at the end, poured over the hot pongal, and the ghee is folded through, not saved as a garnish.
Sona masoori is a medium-grain rice and cooks soft with the dal in the same pot. The consistency test is a spoon dragged through the pongal: it should leave a soft trail that slowly closes. Our guide to chawal (rice) covers the grain.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Pongal
- Sona masoori rice — 1 cup
- Moong dal (green gram) — 1/2 cup
- Water, for cooking — 3 1/2 cups
- Salt — 1 tsp
Tempering
- Ghee — 2 tbsp
- Black peppercorns — 1 tsp
- Cumin Seeds — 1 tsp
- Ginger, finely chopped — 1 tbsp
- Curry leaves (fresh, or a few dried) — 10 leaves
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Serving Suggestions
Serve hot with coconut chutney and sambar, with a crisp papad on the side for crunch. This pot makes four bowls. Leftover pongal keeps up to two days in the fridge; warm it with a splash of hot water to loosen it.
Tips for Cooking Ven pongal
Dry-roast the moong dal before washing it, only until it smells nutty and turns pale gold. The consistency is right when a spoon dragged through the pongal leaves a soft, slowly closing trail. Add the tempering only at the end, poured over the hot pongal, and fold it in gently.
Chef’s Note
The ghee is not a garnish here: it is folded through the hot pongal along with the pepper and cumin. A bowl comes to about 330 kcal with 10.1 g of protein and 4.2 g of fibre, the protein mostly from the moong.
Per serving (approx.): 330 kcal, protein 10 g, carbs 53 g, fat 8.1 g, fibre 4.2 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 17, 2026
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