Fragrant, comforting, and easy to serve as a complete meal, Karnataka Style Mandakki Usli Recipe (Puffed Rice Upma) is a vegetarian Indian, Karnataka, South Indian breakfast made with puffed rice/murmura/mandakki, oil, and peanuts in about 15 minutes. The recipe lays out the ingredients and each cooking step clearly, so you can adjust seasoning, texture, and serving size for your own kitchen.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 5 minutes
  • Cook time: 10 minutes
  • Total time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: 2
  • Category: Breakfast
  • Cuisine: Indian, Karnataka, South Indian

Ingredients

  • 8 cups puffed rice/murmura/mandakki
  • 2-3 tablespoons oil
  • 1/4 cup peanuts
  • 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
  • 1 stalk curry leaves
  • 2-3 green chillies (finely chopped)
  • 2 medium onion (finely chopped)
  • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
  • salt (to taste)
  • juice of half lemon
  • 2 tablespoons coriander leaves
  • 2 tablespoons grated coconut ((optional))
  • 2-3 tablespoons putani/dalia/fried gram powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon sugar (optional)

Method

  1. Firstly, soak the puffed rice in the water for about 2 minutes. Then, squeeze out the water and keep the soaked puffed rice aside. ** Note: Make sure it doesn’t soak much water and turn mushy.
  2. Make a fine powder of putani/dalia split/fried gram and keep aside.
  3. Heat the oil in a Kadai. When it's hot, add peanuts and fry until golden brown.
  4. Then add mustard seeds let them splutter. Next, add curry leaves, green chilies and saute for a few seconds.
  5. Add onion, salt, turmeric, and saute for about 2-3 minutes until the onion becomes translucent.
  6. Then, add the juice of half a lemon and mix well. Mandakki oggarane is ready.
  7. To the Oggarane, add puffed rice (make sure there is no water), coriander leaves, grated coconut (optional), and mix well.
  8. Lastly add fried gram powder, sugar (optional) and toss everything well and turn off the gas.
  9. Serve mandakki usli with chilli bajji and hot chai.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.