Do you know how to cook millet?
By now, pretty much everyone has heard about (and is most likely tired of hearing about) quinoa’s superpowers and how to cook quinoa. With all of the hype surrounding quinoa, millet often gets overlooked, which is unfortunate because this ancient seed is highly nutritious (providing copper, magnesium, fiber, iron, and B vitamins) and yields a super fluffy and creamy result when cooked.
Look for millet in the bulk section of Whole Foods or a health food store. It can also often be found in regular grocery stores, packaged by companies like Bob’s Red Mill or Arrowhead Mills. (If nothing else, you can order millet online.)
If you like quinoa—or even if you don’t—chances are high you will like millet just as much… or more!
How to Cook Millet
(makes 2 servings – Feel free to omit the sweetener for a savory millet)
- 1/2 cup dry millet (80g)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup milk of choice (240g)
- 1 cup water or more milk of choice (240g)
- 2 tbsp sugar of choice or xylitol (22g)
- pinch stevia, or 2 more tbsp sugar of choice
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- optional: raisins, fruit, mini chocolate chips
How to cook millet: In a medium pot, combine the first six ingredients (if using raisins, add them as well), and bring to a boil. Cover and cook on “low” for 20 minutes. Then turn off the heat but leave covered another 20 minutes. Stir. Millet should be thick and fluffy now. If it’s still a bit liquidy, cook uncovered until desired texture is reached. Turn off heat and stir in vanilla extract. If desired, stir in chocolate chips or fruit of choice. Can be eaten hot or cold.
Click for: Breakfast Bowl Millet Calories and Nutrition Facts
Question of the Day:
This question actually has nothing to do with how to cook millet… I’m attending a potluck this coming weekend and would love suggestions of what dessert to bring. So the question of the day is:
Do you have any go-to desserts you think would be good for a potluck?
Link of the Day: Homemade and Healthy Twinkies—with a healthy cream filling.
Corrina says
chopped almonds, dates, and a little orange rind rolled into little balls and dipped in dark chocolate
Mari says
Millet… ah that brings back memories. The summer after my sophomore year in college (about 1990), instead of going back to my parents’ house I shared a house with my boyfriend and a few other couples. I was out of work due to knee surgery and so the others paid my share of the rent in exchange for cooking for everyone, and since most of the gang were vegetarians we kept a vegetarian table. Millet, even organic, was dirt cheap from the bulk bins at the local health-food store because demand for it was very low – it was cheaper than rice or oatmeal so we ate a LOT of millet! The most popular things were a casserole of millet baked with tomatoes, garlic, and cheese (vegans could use something like Daiya), and a baked rice pudding with millet (millet is naturally slightly sweet tasting so it is well suited to that). Toasting it until lightly browned in a dry skillet before cooking gives it a lovely nutty flavor but be sure to use lowish heat because it can pop like popcorn and go everywhere!
As far as sweets for potlucks go, what I bring tends to be determined these days by the dominant food allergies of the group attending (sigh…). I usually default to gluten-, soy-, peanut- and refined-sugar-free nowadays, nut-free if anyone has severe reactions because of potential cross-contamination – your rice crispy treats tend to go over really well (I like One Degree Organics’ sprouted brown rice-crisp cereal) especially with mini chocolate chips or dried wild blueberries. If nuts are an issue I use Sunbutter. If I know I definitely do not have to worry about nut allergies, a big tray with a selection of different flavors of the Fudge Babies/Larabars is fun. I portion them with a little scoop like a melon baller so they’re balls maybe 3/4″ across and call them “fruit truffles”. I make my life easier by processing a lot of nuts into a coarse meal consistency beforehand and dumping it into a big bowl (usually a mixture of whatever nuts I have on hand: walnuts, Brazil nuts – most of us need the selenium – hazelnuts, supplemented with almond meal and cashew meal from Trader Joe’s) and using that for the nut part, instead of doing up each batch individually from square one. I grind the fruit portion and add nut meal until the consistency is right, dump the resulting “dough” in a bowl, cover and label it, then I roll them all at once. Disposable vinyl gloves make this a much more pleasant task! Some flavors get additional nuts that are a bit more coarsely chopped and usually toasted, and I usually roll the ball in the chopped nuts: like blueberry-lemon generally gets pecans, banana balls (Trader Joe’s “Just Bananas, Flattened” are the bomb for those) get walnuts or macadamias, apricot balls (usually with orange-flower water or rosewater – think Middle Eastern food) get chopped pistachios. A local cake decorating store has candy papers in different colors, and I use the colors to color-code the flavors; I make a little placard to put next to the tray that shows what color holds what flavor, and the ingredients for each (with all the food allergies out there now, it’s just polite to disclose the ingredients). It sounds like a massive time suck but done assembly-line style actually takes less time than making a pie from scratch, and when the balls are small people can take half a dozen flavors and not look (or feel) like they’re massively oinking out. LOL And of course you know how well they store, they could be made two weeks ahead of time and stored tightly sealed in the refrigerator (the papers tend to wilt so just mark your containers with the different flavors, then drop the truffles into the papers as you’re making up the tray(s) to take to the party… side hint, hit up a florist shop for some of that fancy patterned foil they use for covering plant pots and use that to cover yard-sale cookie sheets. Tah-dah, “fancy” serving trays you won’t worry about losing!).
Cupcakes baked in mini muffin tins would be fun too – maybe mini strawberry-shortcake cupcakes: a white or yellow cake cupcake scooped out with a melon baller and filled with your vegan whipped cream, with a whole hulled strawberry stuck point-up right in the middle. (Make a trifle with the scooped-out cake bits.) Fruit-filled summer rolls (the kind in the rice-paper wrapper) have been making the rounds of Pinterest and various blogs, and since it’s getting hot those would be a nice fresh-tasting sweet, as would crisp little tartlets made from baking wonton wrappers in mini muffin tins, filled with a pastry cream and finely-chopped fruit almost like an all-fruit salsa, perhaps with a drizzle of white chocolate or sprinkle of toasted coconut (especially if your pastry cream is based on coconut milk) – all the components could be made ahead and then just bang them together at the last minute so they don’t get soggy. I like things that are pre-portioned for potlucks and buffets because serving utensils get all mucky and often cross-contaminated, and things run out because some people take a big portion, and I also like for those portions to be small so that one can try a whole bunch of things. And finger food is just plain fun. 😀
Chocolate Covered Katie says
Thanks for all the suggestions!
Tara says
I haven’t gone to a potluck in a while but my favorite fall back dessert was individual blueberry cheesecakes. Savory dish that everyone loves at a party is layered bean dip.
Thanks for this millet recipe! I’ve made an indulgent pumpkin millet muffins from Rebar restaurant’s cookbook… would love a vegan version 😉
Steph says
Millet? I love millet!I had millet with my lunch just yesterday 🙂 Never had it as a breakfast bowl though- awesome idea.. will try! 😀
BeeRee says
That sounds dellicious!! Think i’m going to stand up earlier tomorrow to make this *-*
About the dessert, for me it would depend on how many people ar coming. If it are a lot i would probably bake a cake or two but if it aren’t too many how about some mini apple pies? 🙂
Ari says
Love millet!
It’s so hearty, and I love this idea of using it as a breakfast bowl!
Laura says
Looks great! Unfortunately I lived off millet for breakfast everyday when I was in Africa for an internship because it was a good gluten free option and now I’m a bit sick of it! For dessert recipes. I’ve made several items from Angela lidden at ohsheglows.com and her recipe book and nothing has ever failed me and it’s vegan!
Laura says
Oops Angela Liddon
Pipsa says
Yay, I guessed! And yay for miller – such a nutritional powerhouse for a grain with an amazingly fluffy texture and yummy kind of buttery taste. Must give this recipe a go, never tried miller porridge before and those protein/fiber numbers seem excellent! Though I would starve after eating only 166 calories for breakie, so hefty toppings are needed 🙂
Pipsa says
Haha, oops of course millet, not miller!
Heather says
Great all around potluck dessert: Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Coconut Bars
http://www.myhomeecomomics.com/gluten-free-chocolate-chip-coconut-bars/
Ana says
If its an outside thing, tinfoil trays full of chopped fruit to be put on the grill.
Danielle @ It's a Harleyyy Life says
Never heard of Millet! I’ll have to try it!
Athletic Avocado says
this looks super good! what is xyitol?
Jennifer says
I’ve never had millet before but this looks yummy! Random (and probably silly) question: what does millet taste like?
Claire Elizabeth says
Hey Katie! I’ve been hearing lots of buzz about millet for a while now. Looks like an awesome gluten-free food! I use the flour, but this looks good! I was wondering, are you still coming out with a cookbook? Haven’t heard much about it in some time. I hope you’re enjoying your life in DC! 🙂
Chocolate Covered Katie says
Yes! barnesandnoble.com/w/chocolate-covered-katie-katie-higgins/1119439699?ean=9781455599707 🙂
Kat W says
How is half the recipe 166 calories when a quarter cup of milet alone (half the recipe) is 189 calories?
KJ says
I have a question about the millet breakfast bowl recipe. How did you get 166 calories per serving? When I run the figures using 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk and 1 cup water for the liquids and Nectresse for the sweetener, I get 218 per 305.7g (10.8oz) serving. Any idea where the estes calories come from?
Love your stuff!
Unofficial CCK Helper says
See Katie’s Recipe FAQ page at the top of the blog for the answer to your question.
Olga says
I used almond milk and it worked out great! My fave new breakfast.
5/5
5/5
Danielle says
thank you! trying millet for the first time, and looking for a “basic” recipe. this is so delicious – tastes more like dessert than breakfast! we have a “scratch and dent” grocery store in our area, and i got a bag of Arrowhead Mills for, get this, 89 cents!