Vegetable Upama

Over the past few days I have got a few requests for breakfast recipes like upama pohe etc. So here is the recipe for vegetable upama. I only had corn (not a vegetable) and peas on hand but you can add a number of other veggies like capsicum, colourful bell peppers, carrot, cauliflower, broccoli etc.
A few days back I attended a nutrition camp in my daughters school and the nutritionist who was addressing the group said ‘As per WHO and other dietary organizations, guidelines say we are supposed to have at least 4-5 servings of vegetables, but because an average person and child doesn’t consume this amount its mandatory to have supplements.’ As a nutritionist myself I was appalled to hear this.
Our body is well equipped to derive whatever nutrition it requires from natural whole foods. We just need to provide our body with a buffet of these whole foods. When we provide our body with high doses of artificial supplements we saturate our body cells with those nutrients and we just get temporary relief from the symptoms we were projecting. Needless to say supplements may also lead to certain side effects like acidity, nausea etc.
This is a very good way of having 1 serving of veggies early morning for the boost of micronutrients.Enjoy!

  • ½ cup Semolina (Rava)
  • 1 cup vegetables
  • 1.25 cups water
  • ½ chopped onion
  • ½ tsp mustard seeds
  • 1 tsp urad dal
  • ¼ tsp asafoetida
  • 4-5 chopped curry leaves
  • 2 green chillies chopped
  • ½ tsp powdered jaggery
  • Salt to taste
  • Cilantro/coriander leaves and coconut for garnishing
  1. Roast the semolina thoroughly. Spend a little time doing this, it’s very important.
  2. Boil the water before you start making the upama. The water should be very hot.
  3. Heat a nonstick pan or a kadhai really well before adding the mustard seeds. Cover and wait till the seeds crackle.
  4. Add asafoetida, urad dal, curry leaves and saute till the ural dal is light brown on low heat.
  5. Add the chopped onions and saute well. Keep stirring till the onions are translucent. If you feel the onions are sticking a lot add 1 tsp water and keep stirring.
  6. Now add the veggies and stir well for a minute. Add the water, salt, lemon juice and jaggery. Cover and cook till the veggies are just tender and not falling apart.
  7. Next add the semolina and keep stirring so that it doesn’t clump together. Once the veggie mixture and semolina mix well cover and cook for 2-3 mins on low heat.
  8. Serve hot and garnish with coriander leaves and coconut.
  9. Tips – Its very essential that the semolina is thoroughly roasted. Also the semolina to water ratio is very important if there are no veggies then use exact double the water for semolina used.
  10. Do not pre-cook the veggies, it’s not needed. You can also add roasted peanut/ roasted channa dal for additional protein.
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