Rava Idli (Semolina Idli)

My 67th recipe, “Rava Idli (Semolina Idli)”, an instant version of the famous South Indian breakfast recipe. Though South Indian Idli's are easy to make, at times the weather gets cold here in winter and I fail with fermenting the batter. At such times and at times when I run out of the regular idli batter, I tend to stick with other instant and easy to cook breakfast dishes. One such breakfast dish which is healthy and easy to make is Rava Idli, which is one of my MIL's favorite.

During initial days, I used to keep the ready to use MTR rava idli mix always in stock. It is very each to prepare. Whenever needed, just add yogurt and water and steam it. Ready in 15 mins. Though it was delicious, it always missed the homemade aura. So one fine day, I decided to try making rava idli from scratch. Until then, I didn't know that making it from scratch was just as easy as using a ready made MTR mix. From then, I always enjoy a batch of soft and tasty Rava Idlis whenever I want, along with the homemade aura 😉

Rava Idli (Semolina Idli)

Rava (Semolina) Idli

Revathi Palani

Rava Idli, is easy to make South Indian idli recipe for breakfast made with rava / sooji and yogurt. Soft and delicious. It is steamed n extremely healthy.

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Prep Time 8 minutes mins

Cook Time 12 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Breakfast

Cuisine Indian

Servings 8

Ingredients

  

• Rava / Sooji / Semolina - 1 Cup
• Curd / Yogurt - ½ Cup *Vegans refer to notes section
• Water - ½ Cup
• Ghee / Oil - 1 Tbsp
• Mustard - ½ tsp
• Chana Dal - 1 tsp
• Broken Urad Dal - ½ tsp
• Cashews - 6 broken in small pieces
• Jeera - ½ tsp
• Ginger - ½ inch piece finely chopped
• Curry leaves - 6
• Green Chilli - 1 Finely chopped
• Carrot - 1 small finely chopped
• Green peas - 1 small handful
• Asafoetida - ¼ tsp
• Salt - ½ tsp adjust as per taste
• Eno Fruit Salt - 1 tsp

Instructions

 

• First, heat a pan with ghee or oil. Add the mustard. Once it splutters, add the chana dal, urad dal, cashew and saute until they just start changing color. Add jeera, curry leaves, ginger, green chilli, carrot, green peas and continue to saute until the cashews changes to golden color.
  
   
  
   
• Now, Add the rava / sooji to the pan and saute until a nice aroma arises. Make sure that the color of rava does NOT change. Transfer to a mixing bowl and leave it to cool for 5 mins.
  
   
  
   
• Add the curd, water, asafoetida and salt to the mixing bowl and mix everything nicely without any lumps into a smooth batter. Leave it to rest for 2 mins. Meanwhile, take a idli cooker/steamer fill with water and let it heat up. Grease the idli plates with ghee/oil and place half a cashew in each of the plate.
  
   
  
   
• Now, just before steaming, add the Eno salt to the batter. Mix nicely. The batter will become frothy. Now, pour a ladle full of batter to each of idli plate hole.
  
   
  
   
• Place the idli plate in the cooker and steam for about 12 mins. Remove the idli plate from the steamer and leave it to cool for 2 mins before scooping out the idlis with a spoon.
  
   
• Enjoy hot with chutney or sambar.
  
  

Notes | FAQ

- Vegans can skip the ½ cup of curd and instead use additional ½ Cup water + 1 Tbsp lemon juice. Taste and texture would however vary.

- In case you are not able to find eno salt, use baking soda instead. Texture would slightly differ.

- Adjust water quantity accordingly to get a batter consistency.

- If preparing more than one batch of idlis, add eno salt only to the portion of the batter, which you are going to cook first. Then before cooking the next batch, add the eno salt to the other portion of batter.