Kitchari

April 07, 2020

Kitchari (खिचड़ी, খিচুড়ি), also called pongal, khichdi and khichri, is a traditional dish from the Indian subcontinent. It’s naturally gluten free and usually vegetarian. Often used as a first food for babies and as an easy-to-digest meal for the sick, this thick and nourishing soup is considered the flagpole recipe of healing Ayurvedic cuisine.

The dish consists of rice or pearl millet and legumes cooked into a porridge with spices and ghee. The traditional type of rice is white basmati because it’s easier to digest than brown rice, but either work well. Split lentils or split mung beans are often the legumes of choice for the same reason. Eaten together, they make a complete protein. Sometimes other vegetables and chilis are included. At the bottom of this article you’ll find tons of different versions of kitchari to explore.

Kitchari and Ayurveda

kitchari

Image from Prchi Palwe via Unsplash

The spices that season kitchari are used to help balance the constitution of the people consuming the meal. In Ayurveda, there are three doshas, or energies, present in people’s bodies. These energies are dynamic and change with situations, but your baseline dosha is considered fairly consistent. Ayurvedic practices aim to bring these into balance in order to help the body function optimally. To do this, different foods and practices are recommended for people with different doshas. To learn more about doshas, you can follow this link. Recipes will generally include guidelines to help you adjust the spices based on your constitution or imbalance. Regardless of Ayurvedic beliefs, many of the spices used in kitchari have been studied scientifically and may be beneficial for various health concerns. Turmeric, for instance, has been shown to offer anti-inflammatory benefits. Combining turmeric with black pepper and other spices greatly increases its absorption, which is exactly the case for kitchari spice blends.

Kitchari Cleanse

kitchari

Kitchari from Wholehearted Eats

Kitchari is a very easy and affordable meal to make at home in bulk, and is a great way to do a gentle reset of your digestion. A kitchari cleanse involves eating only kitchari for every meal for 3-10 days. It’s a mono-meal cleanse, so generally no other foods are consumed during this period. The cleanse is not about restricting how much you eat, it’s about nourishment and improving digestion. You may want to ease your way into and out of the diet by slowly cutting out alcohol and caffeine before, and slowly reintroducing other simple foods once the cleanse is complete. Some people choose to include other foods, like fruit, or additional ayurvedic practices, like oil massage, during the cleanse. Even if you’re not into Ayurveda, it can be nice to give yourself a break from deciding what to eat for a few days.

Kitchari Spices

kitchari

Image from Ratul Ghosh via Unsplash

Whole spices are preferable, but a preground spice mix is certainly easier. We’ve included some links to both, plus an electric grinder below. You can always use a spice mix then adjust with additional spices to taste. When buying spices or mixes, make sure that the hing (also called asafoetida) is gluten free, because it’s almost always cut with wheat flour. The hing included in the list below is celiac safe.