A south Indian dosa is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, but this brown rice dosa riffs off my classic dosa recipe to make it even healthier. You get dosas that are soft but crispy at the edges with better flavor
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Why brown rice dosa?
I often have dosa batter on hand for quick breakfasts and dinners. Dosas are made with simple pantry ingredients, including rice and lentils; the batter is fermented so the healthy bacteria in the lentils have already digested the starches before you eat them; and, of course, they taste fabulous with a bowl of sambar or coconut chutney. But ever so often, when I am keeping a closer eye on what my family eats, I switch to these healthier dosas made with brown rice.
Brown rice has many distinct advantages over white rice. For one, it is not polished to within an inch of its life, the way white rice is, and still has its germ, bran and endosperm intact. This means it has more fiber, vitamins and antioxidants than white rice does, and it doesn't spike your blood sugar as high as white rice would.
I love eating white rice with dal as much as any Indian does. But I have to admit that dosas made with brown rice just taste better. They are nuttier, richer in flavor, and they cook up deliciously crispy at the edges - just the way I love them.
These brown rice dosas are so good and I've been making them for so long, I shared this recipe with you back in 2009. That was perhaps before I shared many more varieties of dosa, including sorghum dosa made with millets, quinoa dosa and rava dosa. I've since learned so much more about probiotics in food and I've tweaked the preparation for my brown rice dosa slightly while keeping the ingredients intact to make sure you and I reap all the benefits of this wholegrain, fermented food.
The dosa is soy-free, nut-free and gluten-free, and it needs just five ingredients: including brown rice, urad dal (black gram dal), chana dal (Bengal gram dal) and poha (flattened rice flakes). A scattering of fenugreek seeds add probiotic insurance. In case the lentils don't provide enough good bacteria to ferment the batter, the fenugreek seeds give a helpful hand by sharing their own bacteria. How cool is that?
If you are new to making dosas, watch my dosa video to see just how to make this amazing south Indian food, including how to spread the batter into a perfect circle on the skillet.
Recipe card
Brown Rice Dosa
Ingredients
- 2 cups brown rice
- ½ cup urad dal (black gram dal)
- 2 tablespoon chana dal (bengal gram dal)
- ¼ cup poha (rice flakes or flattened rice)
- ½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds (methi dana)
- Salt to taste
Instructions
Soak ingredients and blend
- Place all ingredients for dosa - rice, urad dal, chana dal, poha and fenugreek seeds in a bowl. Add enough water to cover the lentils and rice. by a couple of inches. Soak for eight hours or overnight. Strain out all water.
- Blend the ingredients (I do this in two batches), adding ½ cup of water each time. Add a little more water if needed to keep the blades running. The batter should be runny enough to spread into a crepe, but thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. When you rub the batter between your thumb and forefinger, you should feel a very slight grittiness from the rice. This will reward you with crispier dosas.
Ferment brown rice dosa batter
- Cover the dosa batter with a lid or cling wrap and leave it in a warm spot to ferment overnight, which helps beneficial probiotic bacteria in the batter multiply and digest the sugars and starches in the rice and lentils. The fermented dosa batter will look puffy and bubbly. Give it a good stir once to deflate it before making dosas.
Make brown rice dosa
- To make dosas, heat a cast-iron or non-stick skillet over medium high heat. The skillet should be hot enough that when you sprinkle a few drops of water on it, they should sizzle and evaporate.
- Using a ladle with a rounded bottom, pour some batter into the center of the skillet and, in a quick but smooth motion, spread outward in circles. Don't be afraid if you see holes: just add a small drop of batter to patch it. If the dosa does not spread smoothly, lower the heat, wipe the skillet clean and try again.
- Pour a few drops of oil around the dosa's edges to help it crisp up. Once the underside is golden brown, loosen the dosa gently from the skillet and flip over. If the skillet was hot enough to begin with, this step will be very, very easy.
- Cook the other side for a few seconds, giving more time if your dosa is thicker. Serve hot with some sambar or chutney or both.
Notes
- This is a no-fuss recipe and you don't need any special varieties of rice to make this dosa. I make my classic dosa with basmati rice and I make this brown rice dosa with brown basmati rice. Use whatever brown rice you have on hand.
- You don't need to soak the rice, dal and poha separately for dosa, the way grandma did. Just soak them in one bowl, drain and blend.
- You can use regular urad dal and poha for this recipe, but when I want to make the brown rice dosa even healthier, I add chilka urad dal, which has the black skin on, and red rice poha.
- Use a high-powered blender or an idli and dosa batter grinder to blend dosa batter to the correct consistency.
- In a winter kitchen, ferment the dosa batter in a cold oven with the light turned or, or in the Instant Pot for eight hours on the "yogurt" setting. The longer you leave the batter out, the more it will ferment. Once the batter reaches the point where it's fermented enough for you, refrigerate it immediately to keep it from getting tangier.
Nutrition Information
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Brown rice dosa FAQs
Absolutely. Although fermentation offers valuable probiotic benefits, you can skip it if you want to make the dosas right away or don't like the tangy flavor. To keep the batter from fermenting, refrigerate it right after you make it.
To fix a runny dosa batter, add some rice flour, a little at a time, until you reach the correct consistency.
The dosa is done when the batter on the griddle looks dry with no wet spots and the underside turns golden-brown. Traditionally you cook a dosa on just one side, but I advise flipping the dosa over to cook the other side for a few seconds because brown rice needs a little more time to cook than white rice does.
You can cut down on soak time with my "parboil" method, where you cover the rice with an inch of water and microwave it for five minutes to soften - not cook - it. Let the rice stand in the hot water for 15 minutes, then add all of the remaining ingredients to the bowl with rice - the two lentils, poha and fenugreek seeds. Soak for four hours before blending the batter.
Serve the brown rice dosa with sambar like this traditional sambar or pumpkin sambar, and/or coconut chutney. You can also serve it with tomato chutney, onion chutney or, for a modern spin, this roasted red pepper chutney.
Recipe first posted on Nov. 19, 2009. Updated and re-published on Oct. 23, 2025.
Sangeetha says
Great recipe! You are a god sent. I was looking for something like this for a while. Thank you Vaishali ?
Vaishali says
So great to hear, Sangeetha! We make these almost every weekend. 🙂
Nina says
This was a winner. Turned out crispy.... surprise surprise! I was skeptical of the taste of brown rice but it was not too far off the mark. I did not have Rice flakes so I used white rice instead. Thank you for making dosa a healthier option.
Vaishali Honawar says
So lovely to hear!
Susan says
Hi, do you have a suggestion for a substitute for coconut milk? Thank you! I really enjoy your blog!
Vaishali says
Use cashew cream--make it by blending 1/4th cup cashews with 1/4th water. Add more water if you want the chutney to be thinner.
Preethi Krishnan says
Thanks, this recipe worked out really well. I like the taste and also the dosa is crispy.
Vaishali Honawar says
Awesome!
Binjal says
This recipe works out pretty good. And the Dosas are super yumm. I made masala out of sweet potato and the coconut chutney as accompaniments. One hell of a perfect breakfast!
Three Cheers!!
Vaishali Honawar says
So happy you loved it!
Shalini says
Do we need to soak the poha also for 5 hrs?
Vaishali says
Yes, just soak it with the rice.
Radhika says
Hi, thanks for sharing this recipe, esp the parboiling tip. We had this dosa for breakfast today. For us, white rice eaters, brown rice is just, well different.. I will make this dosa regularly. A delicious way to get all the benefits of brown rice
Vaishali Honawar says
So glad to hear!
Sejal says
Made them yesterday and turned out crip and perfect.
Thank you for the recipe
Vaishali says
Hi Sejal, great to hear-- thanks for letting me know!
Anuradha says
Looks great! The urad dal you use is washed urad or the black whole? I believe it’s the white but just wanted to make sure. 🙂
Vaishali says
It's the white!
Fifi says
I've made Dosa a while back and put a potato mixture inside and folded them over to eat. I cannot find my potato recipe. Could you please give me the recipe for the potatoes that go in the Dosa?
Thank you.
Vaishali says
Hi Fifi, you can use my potato masala recipe on the blog for the stuffing.