Khichari (Kitchari)

A spiced Indian dish of rice and mung beans. A traditional Indian dish. It's perfect for rice lovers, as well as for vegetarians and vegans, if you swap the ghee for vegetable oil. It's also a good dish for anyone fasting or on a diet.

Alyonushka

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Basmati rice

Mung beans

Onion

Ghee (clarified butter)

Turmeric

Ground coriander

Cumin

Sea salt

Water

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 20 % 3 g

Fats 7 % 1 g

Carbohydrates 73 % 11 g

64 kcal

GI: 8 / 58 / 33

Cooking method

Cooking time: 40 min

Step 1:

How do you make khichari? Gather the ingredients you'll need. Rinse the mung beans and soak them overnight.
Step 2:

Put the ghee in a heavy pot, and once it melts and heats up, add all the spices so their flavor and aroma come out.
Step 3:

Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion.
Step 4:

Fry the onion in the spiced oil.
Step 5:

Then rinse the rice several times and add it to the pot with the onion.
Step 6:

Put the rinsed mung beans on top of the rice. Stir the contents of the pot so the rice and beans mix with the spices.
Step 7:

Then pour water into the pot at a 1:2 ratio, salt it, and cook the rice and beans until all the water has evaporated. Once the water is gone, the khichari is ready.

In Ayurveda, this dish is believed to balance all the energies in the body, leading to healing, rejuvenation, and detoxification. There's even a mono-diet based on eating khichari, since it has an ideal balance of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, plus lots of vitamins and minerals. Basmati rice is best — it's considered the most suitable for this dish. But if you use another kind, like long-grain parboiled rice for pilaf, you can try that too. The mung beans in the recipe are a legume, also known as mung dal or moong beans — a very nutritious, easily digestible food. If you didn't soak the beans overnight, you can soak them for two hours. Ghee is clarified butter that contains neither casein nor lactose. For vegans, you can swap it for coconut oil or another vegetable oil. If you're not a fan of Indian cuisine, you can just use regular butter. This is a base recipe. You can add various vegetables, such as carrot, zucchini, pumpkin, or even beets. Besides vegetables, you can also add more spices — for example, chili pepper to make it spicier, or ginger. You can also add whole mustard, dill, and fennel seeds, or asafoetida. Asafoetida is a spice whose flavor resembles onion and garlic. In general, experiment to see which combinations you like best. Khichari is good to eat at any meal, since rice and mung beans are wonderfully easy for the body to digest. And the spices help that process along, too. Enjoy!
Tip! To make rice dishes turn out reliably delicious every time, read the article on the finer points of choosing rice and the secrets of cooking it.
Since everyone's preferred level of salt, sweetness, bitterness, heat, acidity, and pungency is different, always add spices and seasonings to your own taste! If you're using a seasoning for the first time, keep in mind that some are especially easy to overdo (chili pepper, for instance).
Any oil is only good up to a certain temperature — its smoke point, at which the oil starts to burn and forms toxic compounds, including carcinogens. For how to gauge the right frying temperature and choose the best oil for frying — and which oils are better avoided entirely — read more here.