Sakkarai Pongal / Sweet Pongal / Chakkara Pongal is a traditional South Indian sweet rice prepared during the harvest festival called Pongal / Sankranthi. In villages freshly harvested rice is cooked with jaggery and dal in clay earthenware pots and offered to God along with vegetables, lentils, sugarcane and fruits. This is also prepared as neivedyam or prasadam during other auspicious occasions and festivals. #instantpotsakkaraipongal #instantpotsweetpongal
In this post we will see how to make this Sakkarai Pongal using Instant Pot which is hassle free and very easy to make.
Instant Pot Sakkarai Pongal is not only easy but also saves time, hardly takes few minutes of supervision. Cook rice and dal, add melted jaggery syrup and season with ghee fried nuts!
Here is the version of SAKKARAI PONGAL RECIPE USING PRESSURE COOKER
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What rice to use? what are the substitutes? Normally pachai arisi / raw rice is used to make this dish along with split yellow moong dal / pasi paruppu. But it can also be prepared with basmati / sona masoori / any short grain variety / millets / quinoa.
Here is a version of sweet pongal using millets MILLET SAKKARAI PONGAL
Do we roast moong dal? Not necessarily, roasting moong makes it more aromatic and also helps to cook fast and even. The same effect can be achieved by soaking it for 30 minutes and also its very healthy to take soaked dal which goes light on your tummy.
Instant Pot Sweet Pongal
Ingredients
- 1 cup Sona masoori / Ponni pachai arisi / Raw rice
- 1/4 cup Pachai Paruppu / yellow lentils / moong dal
- 1.5 cup Vellam / Jaggery
- 4.5 cups Water for cooking rice & dal
- 1/2 cup Water for melting Jaggery
- 1/4 cup Ghee
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1 pinch Edible camphor
- 1/4 teaspoon Cardamom powder
- 10 each Cashews
- 6 each Raisins optional
Instructions
- Soak rice and dal for 30 minutes. Rinse well, strain and set aside.
- Plug in the instant pot, take rice, dal and water in the inner pot and put the lid on. Seal the pressure release.
- Turn on to PRESSURE COOK mode, select HIGH PRESSURE and cook for 10 minutes.
- Let the pressure release naturally.
- Switch to SAUTE MODE
- Meanwhile melt jaggery in little water and filter impurities and keep it ready. Add this to the cooked rice and dal.
- Add in salt, edible camphor and elachi powder.
- Let it thicken a bit.
- In a separate pan, heat ghee and toast the cashews and raisins.
- Add this to the simmering pongal and mix well. Let it simmer for few minutes or until the desired consistency.
- Instant Pot Sakkarai Pongal is ready to be served!
5 Comments
Turned out to be very delicious.I have been using Instant Pongal Mix from True Elements – a clean label food brand Instant Pongal Mix and this recipe went perfect with it.
Tried this for pongal festival today and it came out really good in instant pot.Kids kept asking for more.Thanks!
That’s awesome Shania, thanks so much for trying!
Looks very easy to prepare with the instant pot. Keep adding more recipes for instant pot like briyani and other variety rice dishes
Thanks Sathish, i am also in the process of learning this instant pot recipes, cooking rice is always tricky with this cooker, yet to unlock perfect rice making technique, will update as and when i try! Thanks again for your feedback, do try and let me know!