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.
Vaishali Honawar says
Hi Anusha, you made me think of my Lalitha Manni who is always asking me to add more toor dal to dosas because they turn out crispy. 🙂 Thanks so much for the tip about the vitamins in the soaking water-- that's a good one. And so happy you liked the dosas.
Anusha says
Hi,
The dosas came out perfect and delicious. When I made it the second time, I was out of channa daal and used toor daal instead. Somehow,it made the dosas even more crispy. I have got so many amazing recipes from you and I just wanted to tell you a little something in return. Prewash the daals and rice and soak them in just enough water that you can use while grinding. Draining the water after the soaking period makes you lose all the water soluble vitamins and minerals. That is my mom's tip. I hope you do not mind.
Thanks,
Anusha
Anonymous says
Hi Vaishali, i was searching for a brown Rice Dosa Recipe and reached you blog. I am very sure this Recipe will turn out Great!!. will try it. I had one more thing not to complain while searching i landed to another link looks like these people are using your photos, i maybe wrong here. just wanted to let u know.-Anonymous
Vaishali says
Anon, thanks for the heads-up about the plagiarist. It is shocking how people have no qualms lifting someone else's work and passing it off as their own.
Anonymous says
Hi Vaishali
2 months ago I came across ur blog while looking for dairyfree dessert. I've never followed any blog. But urs is exception which is full of great new ideas and teasty recipes . So far I've tried 3-4 recipes from ur blog the most and best we liked is brown rice uthappa.
Thanks a lot for healthy and delicious recipe with great idea of parboiling brown rice .
Vaishali says
Anonymous, so happy to hear you've enjoyed the blog. Also glad you liked the uthappam-- one of my favorites. 🙂
Manasi says
I got a sack of brown ricebut found it too chewy to eat on a regular basis. It is lying around, waiting for nirvana. These dosas are perfect. Bookmarked!
Dr. Rupa Shah says
I have made dosa from brown rice often. They are more crispy than the parboiled rice version. Red rice can also be tried for making dosa. Thanks for writting about this healthy version of dosa.
Kay says
Hi Vaishali, We had these dosas for sunday dinner and yes, they won hands down to the white dosas. It was a genius idea to parboil the rice.
Thanks very much for sharing this.
Shri says
The dosas look fab , Vaishali!
Dershana says
Hi Vaishali, dosas look fantastic. i've tried making the batter with brown basmati and also with red rice. i've poste dthe red rice version on my blog.
Aparna says
This works so well. I was in the same dilemma, but what I did was to soak the rice in boiling hot water! 🙂
Kumudha says
I have to try these yummy looking dosas. They look so nutritious and tasty!
Nidhi says
I am going to try this. Great idea. I guess I will just soak the parboiled brown rice and dals overnight and grind in the morning for a weekend breakfast. Oh, only if we get over these continuous viral infections!! (Yeah, I am so tired of this weather....)
zengirl says
Vaishali,
I always avoided making any new recipes with brown rice, as it takes lot longer to cook, but you made it much easier for me try out. Thanks.
sandhya says
perfect healthy dosas... thanks for this idea. will try it next time...
Anonymous says
Can you make this without poha?
Vaishali says
Yes, just skip it.
Maya Varadan says
Hey Vaishali,
I have been sneaking around your blog for some months,never left you a comment.Healthy recipe.Will defly try them.I have plethora of thoughts to write here about ur blog,I would put it simple 'Awesome Work".DH and me are vegetarian's by birth and we always had this concern how can we instill that habit in our daughter who is just a toddler now,but in this country(USA) with free options available in schools,everywhere it is difficult to cultivate that habit.By reading thru your blog it motivates me to go 'vegan',again just not our religion and culture that influence us being vegetarians,majorly the thought another living is being killed to feed us make us to not even eat eggs.
Anyway Hats Off.Keep up the good work.
Vaishali says
Maya, welcome and thanks! You are very sweet- and compassionate.
Renu says
Just bought brown rice yesterday, I will try your recipe ...looks healthy !
Vaishali says
Betty, Thanks. You can find a recipe for a quick naan here: .
Divya, It is slightly different in that the taste is nuttier-- I thought it tasted much better than the white dosa version.
A and N, RV, Usha: Thanks!
Evolvingtastes, yes, it doesn't need any fermentation. Desi doesn't like the taste of fermented dosas anyway, so I almost never let the batter ferment. But if you like, you can certainly allow the dough to stand longer to get the fermentation going.
Shreya, Thanks.
Sunshinemom, I have never tried idlis with brown rice. I don't make idlis as often as I ought to. I was just thinking of making them more often, though, so if I do try them with brown rice I'll surely exchange notes.
Cham: Thanks!
Sharmila, the parboiling is not hard work at all-- it just takes five minutes in the microwave. 🙂
Kmouse, Miri, Priya: Thanks!
Priya says
Using brown rice for making out dosas seems an excellent and healthy idea Vaishali..crispy dosas looks prefect..
Miri says
What a fantastic idea!
kmouse says
Those look wonderful!!!!
Sharmila says
I just use whatever rice I have at home which is usually white rice. But I do dump in lots of legumes and lentils. This version of yours sounds great Vaishali! Parboiling the rice first ... wow... you do work hard! 🙂
Cham says
Par boiling the rice before grinding is great idea. Dosas look perfect!
Sunshinemom says
Your dosas look lovely, brown and crisp! I use brown rice sometimes too. I found that the dosas are good but I wasn't happy with my idlis when I used brown rice as they were not as soft as the ones with polished rice. If you have tried it please let me know your experience.
Shreya says
Hi Vaishali, awesome idea, and use of brown rice is so much healthier! Thanks a ton, will definitely be trying this..
evolvingtastes says
Wow!! No fermentation needed?
Usha says
I use brown rice regularly for my dosas but never thought to par boil them before soaking that is such a cool idea and the dosas have turned out perfect !
RV says
They look perfect as the regular rice dosas... I have bookmarked it.. 🙂
A_and_N says
OMG! that is a great idea. I buy white rice ONLY for dosas now. The last time I tried with brown rice, it was this coarse mixture and my mixi gave up 🙁
Great idea, Vaishali. Will try soon.
Divya Vikram says
This is something I have always wanted to try. thanks for the recipe Vaishali. Does it differ much in taste?
Dairy Free Betty says
Mmmmm... Can I please come to your house for dinner... Those look soooooooooo good... YUM!! Every one of your recipes make my mouth water!!
Do you have a good recipe for dairy free nan bread, the soft stuff that I can use when I make curry!! My email is barefoot_pinktoes@hotmail.com
Come check out my blog!!
Thank you!!!!!!!