Ragi Benefits & Raagi Recipes for Babies & Toddlers

Ragi is a nutritious food item given to toddlers and growing children to meet their vast nutrition needs. Ragi also is known as Finger Millet is a wonder grain for its many benefits and nutritious qualities. Its most commonly found in South India, many people mistake it for Rai (black mustard seeds) as it resembles a lot.

Ragi contains important amino acids such as, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, and phenylalanine that are not present in other starchy meals. It has the highest amount of calcium (344 mg %) and potassium (408 mg %). Ragi is a great source of iron making it beneficial for individuals with low hemoglobin levels.

Benefits of Ragi for Babies & Toddlers

 Here, our recipe blogger Priya Mankotia shares more on this wonder grain ragi for your toddler...

1. High Nutritional Content: Rago powder is rich in nutritional contents
2. Easily Digestible
3. Curbs Appetite
4. Makes Babies Feel Fuller
5. Prevents Iron And Calcium Deficiencies
6. Enhances Immunity

Ragi has the ability to keep your system warm so it can also be given in winters to your child, but it should be given in the right way and in the right quantity.

In fact, I have been giving Ragi to my daughter since her first weaning food. Believe me, I never had any problem giving her in any season and due to its high nutritional value, I’m somehow not worried about my daughter’s nutrition.

Ragi Recipes for Your Babies & Toddler

These few recipes can be given during monsoon and even in winter. Let's have a try...

#1. Ragi Halwa:

• Take Ragi flour and ghee.
• Mix the ghee and flour and cook until it turns little brown,
• add jaggery and boiled water
• and stir until water disappears.
• You can add dry fruit powder for toddlers

#2. Ragi Banana Pancakes

Ingredient:

• Ragi flour - ½ cup
• Organic Jaggery powder - 1 to 2 tbsp (optional)
• Coconut scrapped - 2 tbsp
• Banana - 1  medium sized (mashed)
• Cardamom - 1
• Cashews - 1 tbsp (optional)
• Water - as needed
• Salt - a pinch
• Oil/ghee - for making pancake

Preparation Method:

• Measure Ragi flour, coconut & Jaggery. Keep it ready. Mash the bananas with a fork and set aside.
• Take jaggery in a saucepan & add water till it immersed level. Heat the jaggery until it melts completely. Strain the jaggery water using a strainer to remove impurities. Set aside.
• In a vessel, add Ragi flour, jaggery water, and scrapped coconut, crushed cardamom, and mashed banana. Add water little by little and mix well so that no lumps are formed. The batter should be like regular dosa batter consistency neither too thick nor runny. Finally, add cashews to the batter and mix well. Set aside.
• Heat a dosa tawa, add a ladle of batter to it and spread it to form a circle. Don't spread too much. Sprinkle ghee or oil. Cook until brown on one side for five minutes and flip the dosa. Cook for a minute and remove from tawa. Repeat the same process for the remaining batter

#3. Ragi Dosa

Ingredients:

• Ragi flour/ Finger millet flour - 1/2 cup
• Wheat flour - 1/4 cup
• Onion - 1
• Green chili - 1
• Curry leaves - 1 sprig
• Cumin/ jeera - 1 tsp
• Salt - as needed
• Buttermilk(optional) or water - As needed

Preparation Method:

• Take Ragi, wheat flour, chopped onions, green chili, torn curry leaves, cumin, salt in a bowl and add enough buttermilk or water to make a thin batter.
• Heat dosa pan, drizzle with oil and pour as we do for rava dosa, drizzle some more oil and cook both sides in medium flame.

For Ragi Batter:

• 2cups Ragi/Finger millet
• 2cups Brown rice
• 1cup Urad Dal
• 1/2tsp Fenugreek seeds

Preparation Method:

• Wash well and soak the finger millets with enough water for 5-6hours.
• Soak the rice and urad dal with fenugreek seeds separately for 4-3hours.
• Drain the water from urad dal and grind it as fine paste.
• Transfer the urad dal batter to a vessel and grind now both the soaked finger millets and brown rice.
• Grind them as bit coarse paste.
• Now mix both the urad dal batter with rice-finger millet batter, add salt and keep aside for overnight.
• After fermentation, give a stir and cook as dosas or idlis.
• After three days, the batter can be prepared as uthappams.

For Uthappams:

• Ragi batter (as per need)
• 1/2cup grated carrot
• 1/2cup Bell-peppers (red & green chopped finely)
• Salt
• Oil for drizzling

Preparation Method:

• Take the grated carrot, chopped bell peppers in a bowl, add salt, mix well, don’t add too much of salt, coz the batter will have salt already
• Heat your usual dosa tawa, rub it gently with few drops of oil
• Once the tawa is hot, pour a ladle of ragi batter and spread as thick dosa, don’t spread it thin
• Drizzle oil on the sides
• Sprinkle the carrot, bell-pepper mixture generously over the dosa, give a press with a spatula.
• Once the dosa gets well cooked, flip the dosa and turn it to another side to cook.
• Drizzle some oil and let it cook well
• When the other side gets cooked well, remove the uthappam from the tawa
• Serve immediately with chutney, sambar or Kuzhambu.

Ragi flour can be used to make flatbreads, chappatis, dosas, idlis. Because of its high nutritional content ragi flour is recommended as a weaning food especially in south India. I keep Ragi flour in my house like we keep wheat flour and at times I just mix a spoon or so in anything like poori or chappati while preparing for my daughter.

Did you like the Ragi recipes shared here? Please do share your views and feedback here as we would to love to hear your views as well.