Eating rice and losing weight doesn’t seem to make sense. After all, rice contains a lot of carbohydrates which a lot of diets don’t recommend. But a certain rice dish, called dal rice, has been reported to aid in weight loss.
In fact, dal rice, or dal chawal as it’s known in India, is a healthy option compared to other sources of carbs. That’s because it contains a lot of essential vitamins and minerals, including protein, as well as enough carbs to help you get through the day. It’s also rich in fiber, which aids in digestion and helps your body detox and lose weight.
This means that you can have it with some of your meals without feeling guilty or compromising your weight loss goals.
But what exactly is dal rice, and what makes it so special compared to other rice dishes?
What is dal rice?
Dal rice is a dish made with rice, lentils, ghee or clarified butter, turmeric, and cumin. The ingredients are pretty simple and seem like they don’t provide a lot of nutrition on their own. But when cooked together in a dish, they turn into a great health food that aids in your weight loss goals.
Rice and lentils alone don’t make for a good health food. But when mixed together, they form a complete amino acid profile. Rice contains cysteine and methionine, while lentils contain lysine. This combination helps boost your protein intake and helps you build muscle compared to other incomplete sources of protein.
Rice also contains a lot of carbohydrates, so it can provide you with the energy boost you need to power through your day. Rice and lentils also have a lot of fiber, which aids in digestion and cleaning out the toxins in your body.
Ghee, or clarified butter, aids in making the nutrients and minerals easier to absorb. Adding cumin and turmeric isn’t just for taste; these spices aid in digestion and weight loss, lowers cholesterol, increases antioxidants in the body, lowers the risk of heart disease and even of cancer.
When mixed together in a dish, these ingredients make up for a tasty and healthy meal.
Dal rice makes for great diet food
Dal chawal can make for a great meal if you’re going on a diet. The reason behind this is that it helps keep you full and boosts your energy.
Oftentimes, when people go on restrictive diets, they tend to feel weak and fatigued. That’s because they don’t eat enough carbohydrates, and it can severely impact their ability to work out.
But by eating dal chawal, you’ll feel fuller, crave less, and have more energy for your workouts. This means you can better stick to your diets and lose more weight since you’ll be working out more.
How do you make dal chawal?
The basic dal chawal recipe is pretty straightforward. Here are the steps you need to follow.
- Mix together 2 cups of rice with 1 cup of red lentils in a pot.
- Next, add 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, turmeric powder, and any other spices you might want to add.
- Add enough water to cover the mixture. The water level should be about 1/2 inch above the rice and lentils.
- Put it over low heat and let it cook for about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Once it’s done, take it off the heat and add ghee as well as salt and pepper to taste.
That’s basically the simplest recipe for dal rice. There are other, more complicated ways to prepare it, but for people on the go, this is a convenient way to cook it.
