Brown Rice Dosa
This brown rice dosa recipe makes a classic south Indian dosa even healthier by replacing white rice with brown rice. Serve the dosa with sambar or coconut chutney for breakfast or dinner.
Servings: 12 dosas (approx)
Calories: 153kcal
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
My best tips for making brown rice dosa
- 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
Serving: 1brown rice dosa | Calories: 153kcal | Carbohydrates: 31g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 0.2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.3g | Potassium: 86mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 0.1g | Vitamin A: 1IU | Vitamin C: 0.4mg | Calcium: 20mg | Iron: 1mg