When most people think of dal or lentils, they really only imagine it in the form of a lentil soup or cooked into a thick mash served at an Indian restaurant.
However, just like with other grains and pulses, dal can be used in a remarkable variety of different ways, including turning it into flour.
How Can I Use My Homemade Dal Flour?
Making dal flour at home is probably the only way you will ever really experience it outside of India because most people have never even heard of it!
However, despite the fact that it is so incredibly niche, it can be used in pretty much any savory recipe where you would use flour.
While it obviously doesn’t have the same kind of thickening power as flower, due to the fact that it doesn’t have any gluten, the longer starch chains in lentils still allow it to help thicken everything slightly, while also lending a deep, earthy flavor to whatever recipe you use it in.
What Kind Of Special Equipment Do I Need To Make Dal Flour?
The only thing you really need to make dal flour at home is an oven capable of maintaining a low temperature, and a high-powered blender.
You could also use a dehydrator to make the whole process way easier and faster, but you don’t really need it, as an oven is good enough on its own.
Ingredients
1 cup of dal (yellow or red)
How To Make Homemade Dal Flour
Step 1 – Prepare your dal by picking out any loose bits of sediment.
Optionally, if your dal isn’t pre-washed:
Step 2 – Rinse your dal under cool running water, and then leave them to dry on a towel until no longer wet to the touch.
Step 3 – Pour your dal onto a sheet tray in as close to a single layer as you can, and then transfer that into an oven set to 150 Fahrenheit, or as low as your oven is able to go.
Step 4 – Dry the dal in the oven until they are brittle to the touch, and then transfer to a blender.
Optionally, if you have a dehydrator:
Step 5 – Arrange your dal in your dehydrator according to the manufacturer’s instruction, and dehydrate it on the “dried foods” or the “fruit” setting.
Step 6 – Pulse your dried dal into a fine powder, starting on low speed and moving up to medium speed, until it has a consistent texture.
Step 7 – Store your dal flour in a jar with a tightly fitting lid in the cupboard for up to 3 months.
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Troubleshooting Tips
• One thing that might happen when preparing dal flour is that it retains a bit of that slightly dirty flavor that unwashed lentils tend to have. To avoid this, make sure that you wash your lentils really, really well under cold running water for at least a minute. You want to not only wash away the outer starch layer but also remove any microscopic traces of dirt that will be clinging to the lentils.
• If you are struggling to get your lentils blended into a fine powder, you might need to put them back into the oven for a little while longer. Even though they may look dry, lentils can cling to water quite well, so they might just need a little bit more time to dehydrate fully.
Nutritional Facts
For the health-conscious out there, here are the nutritional details for 1 cup of Dal Flour
Calories: 169
Total Fat: 0.5 grams
Saturated Fat: 0.1 grams
Cholesterol: 0 milligrams
Sodium: 3 milligrams
Total Carbohydrates: 28.8 grams
Dietary Fiber: 14.6 grams
Sugars: 1 grams
Protein: 12.4 grams
Potassium: 458 milligrams
FAQs
While many supermarkets tend to only stock one kind of dal, there is actually a whole variety of different colors of dal out there, from brown and red, to green and yellow.
Luckily, the only real difference between most of them is the amount of the outer layer of the lentil that has been removed prior to packaging.
For this recipe, though, you will want to lean more towards the red or the brown lentils over any other kind. This is because these lentils have had the entirety of their outer shell removed, and that outer shell can contain a lot of extra fats and indigestible fiber, both of which will get in the way of the blending process and stop you from being able to make dal flour.
Dal flour is basically just blended up lentils, which are already a dried and preserved pulse. This means that, so long as you ensure that your dal flour is stored in a sealed container away from the air, it should last up to a month before starting to lose some of its freshness.
While you will have dehydrated your dal in the process of turning it into flour, it will still technically be uncooked. Cooking is a lot more than just drying the grain out; it needs high heat to help break down the long starch chains and ensure that the lentil actually becomes edible.
Make sure that, whatever recipe you do use your dal flour in, it still gets fully cooked before you eat it.
How to Make Homemade Dal Flour
Instead of just using regular flour, why not learn how to make your very own flour made from dal?
Ingredients
1 cup dal (yellow or red)
Instructions
Step 1 – Prepare your dal by picking out any loose bits of sediment.
Optionally, if your dal isn’t pre-washed:
Step 2 – Rinse your dal under cool running water, and then leave them to dry on a towel until no longer wet to the touch.
Step 3 – Pour your dal onto a sheet tray in as close to a single layer as you can, and then transfer that into an oven set to 150 Fahrenheit, or as low as your oven is able to go.
Step 4 – Dry the dal in the oven until they are brittle to the touch, and then transfer to a blender.
Optionally, if you have a dehydrator:
Step 5 – Arrange your dal in your dehydrator according to the manufacturer’s instruction, and dehydrate it on the “dried foods” or the “fruit” setting.
Step 6 – Pulse your dried dal into a fine powder, starting on low speed and moving up to medium speed, until it has a consistent texture.
Step 7 – Store your dal flour in a jar with a tightly fitting lid in the cupboard for up to 3 months.
Notes
Makes 4 servings.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
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