Pongal 2025: Celebrate Pongal with these 5 delicious dishes, your health will get immense benefits.

Pongal is a harvest festival celebrated by the Tamil community. It is a celebration of giving thanks to the sun, nature, fields and animals, which contribute to the crop yield. Pongal is celebrated every year on 14 or 15 January. This year Pongal will start from Tuesday, January 14 and will continue till Friday, January 17 (pongal 2025). People celebrate it with great enthusiasm in the South, but now this festival is being celebrated everywhere.

On the day of this festival, everyone prepares different types of dishes in their homes, and serves them on plates with great love. Pongal thali is very special (pongal recipes). Pongal is also the name of a dish prepared and eaten during this festival. Today, on the occasion of Pongal, we thought why not share with you all the recipes of some delicious and healthy dishes of Pongal Thal. So let us know, 5 such recipes (Pongal thali recipe).

Serve these 5 dishes in Pongal thali (Pongal thali recipe)

1. Ven Pongal Recipe

To make this you need

1 cup raw rice
¼ cup moong dal paasi
5 cups water
Salt
1 tbsp chopped ginger
1 pinch asafoetida
1 teaspoon ghee or oil

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to temper
2 tbsp ghee
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cumin
5 to 7 curry leaves
⅛ pinch asafoetida
8 cashews (broken)

prepare like this

• Wash 1 cup raw rice and ¼ cup moong dal together. Moong dal can be roasted for additional flavour.
• Heat 1 tsp ghee in a small cooker. Fry 1 tablespoon chopped ginger and 1 pinch of asafoetida for a few seconds.
• Add 5 cups of water, let it boil.
• Add washed rice, dal, then salt and cook on medium flame for 4 whistles.
• Wait until the pressure releases on its own, then open and mash.
• First add 2 tablespoons ghee, when hot add 1 teaspoon black pepper and let it crackle, and then turn off the flame.
• Add 8 cashews and 1 teaspoon cumin and fry until the cashews turn golden. After that add 1 curry leaf and ⅛ pinch of asafoetida.
• Then add it to the Pongal and mix well.
• Now add one spoon of melted ghee and serve hot. It gives the best results.

2. Tamarind Rice Recipe

To make this you need

rice 2 cups
Any oil 1 cup
Tamarind 1 small bowl
dry red chilli 10
Gram dal ½ cup
Peanuts ½ cup
Urad Dal ¼ cup
Curry leaves 2 big handfuls
Asafoetida 1 teaspoon
Water – 2 cups
salt as per taste

For roasting and grinding:

oil 1 spoon
dry red chilli 20
Fenugreek seeds 1 teaspoon

prepare like this

• Cook the rice as usual.
• Take tamarind and soak it in water for 15 minutes.
• Squeeze out as much juice as possible and discard the pulp.
• Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a pan, dry roast chilli and fenugreek seeds on low flame. Now put it in a blender and grind it.
• Now heat sesame oil in a pan. Add peanuts, gram dal and fry until golden.
• Add urad dal, curry leaves and asafoetida and fry everything together for one more minute.
• Add dry red chilli to it and fry for a minute.
• Add tamarind water to it and cook until it thickens.
• Now add spices and salt and mix well.
• Cook it until it dries and oil separates.
• Now you can cool it and store it in an air tight container in the refrigerator.
• When you need. Mix it in cooked rice, add salt as per taste and enjoy.

3. Coconut Rice

To make this you need

1 cup raw rice regular white rice, short grain
2 teaspoon coconut oil
1/2 cup grated coconut
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon urad dal
1 spoon chana dal
2 dried red chillies broken
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida
7 to 10 curry leaves
8 cashews broken or whole
salt as per taste

Prepare coconut rice like this

• Wash and cook the rice. Spread on a plate.
  Tip: If you have pre-cooked rice, cold rice works great.
• Put oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds, asafoetida, urad dal, broken chillies, cashew nuts, curry leaves and fry till the cashew nuts turn golden brown.
• Lower the flame and add grated coconut until it leaves some oil on the sides and the mixture becomes aromatic.
• Turn off the gas, add salt and cool.
• Now add cooled and puffed rice to the pan.
• Mix well and serve it in Pongal thali.

4. Semiya Payasam Recipe

To make this you need

500 ml milk
1/2 cup semiya (vermicelli), roasted
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp cashews, halved
3 tbsp raisins
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
2 saffron threads
1 tbsp ghee

How to make Lasmiya Payasam Recipe (Vermicelli Kheer Recipe)

• To make Semiya Payasam recipe, cook Semiya (vermicelli) in water.
• In a saucepan, add water and semiya and bring to a boil. When the semiya starts boiling, reduce the flame to medium and cook until the semiya becomes soft.
• Once done, add 500 ml milk, sugar, cardamom powder and saffron and keep mixing until the sugar dissolves completely.
• Simmer the semiya payasam/kheer for another 5 minutes until the flavors are well absorbed, and the payasam looks thick and creamy.
• You can adjust the consistency of the payasam as per your liking.
• Note, once the semiya payasam cools down, the semiya will start absorbing all the milk and will also become thick.
• While the semiya is boiling, we will roast the cashews. Heat ghee in a small pan on low flame; Add cashews and fry until crisp and golden.
• Add raisins, mix for a few seconds, until it swells and keep aside.
• Switch off the flame and finally garnish the semiya payasam with roasted cashew nuts and raisins and serve the payasam in a hot or cold Pongal thali as per your wish.

5. Sambar

To make this you need

½ cup toor dal
1 carrot or any other favorite sambar vegetable

For seasoning:
1 teaspoon oil
½ tsp mustard
½ tsp cumin
6 small onions/1 large onion
some curry leaves
¼ teaspoon hing
1 tomato
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon sambar powder
½ teaspoon salt (as per taste)
2 cups water
finely chopped coriander leaves

Prepare Sambar like this

• Wash toor dal and soak it in enough water for 15 to 20 minutes.
• Cook the dal for 3 to 4 whistles until it becomes soft.
• Mash and keep aside.
• Then heat oil in a pan, add mustard and cumin seeds in it.
• When the mustard starts crackling, add onion, curry leaves and asafoetida.
• When the onion starts cooking, add chopped tomatoes to it and cook until it becomes soft.
• Add turmeric powder and sambar powder.
• Now cook the chopped vegetables with some water.
• Let the vegetable cook with the spices for 5 minutes.
• Open the lid and add mashed toor dal. Mix pulses in cooked vegetables.
• Now add salt as per requirement for sambar.
• Add a cup of water to make a thin paste.
• Close the lid and let the sambar boil for five minutes.
• Finally garnish with coriander leaves.
• Turn off the gas and serve hot with Pongal.

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