How to make healthy ragi ladoo at home?

My gym friend told me how to make healthy are ragi ladoo at home. As I want to include more finger millet in my diet as it is rich in calcium, I thought of making it too. It is an excellent pre-workout and post-workout snack.

I took the recipe from her who in turn had followed recipe from a popular Indian food website. I have followed more or less her recipe except a few changes. So, this is how you make ragi ladoo with jaggery at home.

Ingredients for ragi ladoos. The best part is all these ingredients you can easily get at your local provision store.

• 2 cups finger millet (ragi/nachni) flour
• 1 cup skinless, saltless peanuts (it’s called mauli shing)
• 1 cup sesame seeds
• 1 cup dessciated dry coconut
• 1 tbsp cardamom seed powder
• 2 cup desi jaggery (cut into small pieces or grated)
• 1-2 tbsp ghee
• 3 cup water

Healthy Nachni Ragi Ladoo – Nutrition Facts

How to prepare ragi laddu with jaggery? Nachni laddu recipe

• In a thick bottom pan, add water. When it comes to a boil, put the gas flame to slow. Add jaggary and stir lightly once in a while.
• In a wok, roast dry coconut for 3 mins on light flame. Empty the contents on to a plate and place it under a fan to cool.
• Now, roast peanuts for 3 mins. Empty the contents onto another plate and leave it to cool down.
• Thirdly, roast sesame seeds for 3 mins. And take it onto a plate and let it cool down.
• Now, take millet flour and roast it for 5 mins. Allow it too cool.
• In a blender jar, add roasted coconut, peanut and sesame seeds. Blend in such a way that peanuts remain in chunks and not fine flour. I turn the mixer in the opposite way to get the result.
• Crush cardamom seeds into a fine powder.
• Now, mix the peanut-coconut-sesame seeds powder with millet flour and cardamom powder.
• Check if your jaggery mixture is ready by taking a little of it in a spoon and adding it to a bowl of water. If the jaggery dissolves, it is still not ready. Once it is ready, you will see that it starts thickening. After sometime, again add a few drops to a bowl of water, if it solidifies and when you fish the jaggery out of water, it rolls into a ball, it means your jaggery solution is ready.
• Turn off the gas.
• Now, add the flour mixture into the jaggery pan little by little all the while stirring it.
• Once you have poured all the flour mixture, mix it well.
• Now take some ghee in your palms and rub it.
• Take a little mixture in your hands and roll it into a ball. It will be hot, so take care. The rolling has to be done while the mixture is still hot, or it will not form into balls.
• Store it in air tight container. If it’s not too humid, you can keep it outside or else in the fridge it goes.

Tips to remember while making ragi laddus:

• Take little mixture only and make small balls, this way, you won’t feel very hot.
• You can replace peanut, coconut and sesame with grounded dry fruits.
• You can use a little water so that your palms don’t burn, but it will reduce the shelf life of the ragi ladoos.
• If you have a help at home, do engage her. It’s faster that way.
• If you don’t want to roll it into balls, you can even spread the mixture onto a plate. Let it set and then cut into diamond pieces in the form of barfi.

Now, I can understand rolling ladoos can be little time consuming not to mention boring. So, instead, you can make ragi barfi out of it. I made this the Sukhdi or gol papdi style.

How to make healthy nachni ragi barfi at home?

• Roast peanuts, dessicated coconut and sesame seeds separately.
• Now, in a pan, take ghee – 2 cups (yes, we need a lot), add nachni flour and roast it. Once the flour roasts, you will get a nice toasted smell.
• Add all the ingredients except jaggery and mix well.
• Turn off the gas (this is very important).
• Now, add grated or finely cut jaggery into the flour mixture and mix well.
• Grease a deep plate with ghee.
• Pour the flour contents with jaggery onto the plate.
• With a steel bowl, spread the mixture evenly – barfi should be 1 cm thick.
• Let it cool. Using a knife, cut into diamond shape.
• Store in airtight container.

This version of recipe consumes a lot of ghee, so this barfi is ideal for the winter season when your body can digest ghee well.

Hope you try these ragi laddus or nachni barfi at home and do let me know how they turned out.

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