Cook Dal Without a Pressure Cooker: Stove, Handi and Rice Cooker

A hostel room with one burner, a cooker whose gasket gave up on Sunday, or a family that simply prefers the taste of slow handi daal: you can cook any daal without a pressure cooker. Red masoor takes 15 to 20 minutes in an open pot, arhar about 40, and soaked rajma or kabuli chana 1.5 to 2 hours. This is how to cook dal without a pressure cooker on the stove, in a clay handi, in a rice cooker or microwave, and why the electric kettle isn’t on the list.

Dal cooking time without a pressure cooker: every daal

These are stovetop times for 1 cup of daal (measured dry) in a heavy pot with the lid slightly open, at a steady simmer. Whole pulses are soaked first. Water is a starting amount; open pots lose steam, so keep a kettle of hot water nearby for topping up.

Split daals are the obvious choice without a cooker. Red masoor, dhuli moong and arhar are done in well under an hour, need no planning, and are exactly what you want on a weeknight. Keep the long-cooking whole pulses for a weekend, or for when the cooker is back. Every pulse gets its own buying and cooking guide under Grains, Daals & Pulses.

How to cook dal on the stove: lid, simmer and foam

The stovetop method is simple, but a few details decide whether you get smooth daal or a burnt base and a stove covered in yellow froth.

1. Wash 1 cup of daal 2 to 3 times. Soak according to the table and drain.
2. Use a heavy pot with plenty of room: daal and water should fill no more than half of it.
3. Add the water from the table, 1/2 tsp haldi and 1 tsp oil or ghee. Bring to a boil on high, uncovered.
4. Skim the foam with a spoon for the first 3 to 5 minutes of boiling. Most of the boil-over risk goes with it.
5. Turn down to a gentle simmer and rest the lid on at a tilt, leaving a finger-width gap. A tight lid traps foam and it boils over; no lid wastes gas and water.
6. Stir every 8 to 10 minutes, scraping the bottom, and top up with hot water whenever the daal thickens too much. Cold water stops the simmer and adds time.
7. Check: split daal is done when a grain crushes to paste between two fingers; whole pulses when they’re creamy right through.
8. Salt at the end, then whisk and add your tarka. Tomato and imli go in only once the daal is soft.

Cooking daal in a clay handi

A mitti ki handi heats slowly and evenly, and the slightly porous clay gives an earthy flavour that many people love. It’s also fragile, so treat it gently.

• New handi: soak it in water for a few hours before the first use and let it dry. Clay that’s wet through heats more evenly and is less likely to crack.
• Gentle heat only: low to medium flame, never high. On a gas stove, a flat iron tawa under the handi spreads the heat.
• Add time: expect roughly 10 to 20 minutes more than the table, because clay warms slowly.
• No shocks: don’t pour cold water into a hot handi or set it down on a wet floor. Sudden temperature change cracks it.
• Cleaning: hot water and a soft brush. Soap soaks into the clay and shows up in the next daal.

How to cook lentils in a rice cooker

A basic electric rice cooker works well for split daals and less well for whole pulses. It heats until the water is gone or absorbed, then a thermostat clicks it over to “warm”. With rice, that’s perfect. With daal, which needs extra water, it often clicks off before the daal is done.

1. Wash 1 cup of red masoor, dhuli moong or soaked arhar.
2. Add 3 cups of water for masoor and moong, 3.5 cups for arhar, plus 1/2 tsp haldi and 1 tsp oil to calm the foam.
3. Fill no more than halfway. Daal froths and can spill out of the steam vent.
4. Start the cook cycle and leave the lid closed.
5. When it switches to warm, check. Masoor and moong are usually done. Arhar often needs a second cycle with 1/2 cup more hot water.
6. Whisk, salt, and pour the tarka straight over.

Whole chana and rajma can be done this way, but they need two or three cycles and top-ups each time. For rajma, boil it hard in a pot for 10 minutes first, because a rice cooker doesn’t reliably keep a rolling boil.

The microwave, for red masoor

Red masoor and dhuli moong can be cooked in a microwave. Use a very large microwave-safe bowl, because the foam rises a lot: 1/2 cup of daal with 1.5 cups of hot water, uncovered, on high for 8 minutes, then stir and cook 4 to 6 minutes more until soft. Let it stand 5 minutes. Microwaves vary, so check early the first time.

How to boil pulses in a kettle? Please don’t

It’s a popular hostel shortcut, and it’s a bad one. An electric kettle is designed to heat water and switch off at the boil. Put daal in it and several things go wrong.

• It never simmers. The kettle switches off at boiling, so the daal cools and stays half-cooked unless you keep pressing the switch.
• Foam gets into the electrics. Starchy froth pours out of the spout and lid, and can run down to the base connector. Water and mains power near each other is a shock and short-circuit risk.
• It burns onto the element. Daal sinks and scorches on the hot plate, which is hard to clean and ruins the kettle.
• It’s hard to clean properly. Starch left inside a kettle turns sour, and the next person’s tea tastes of it.

Use the kettle for what it’s good at: boiling water to quick-soak kala chana, or to top up a pot of simmering daal with hot water instead of cold.

Myth: handi daal is healthier than pressure cooker daal

Handi daal tastes different, often creamier and smokier, and that’s a perfectly good reason to cook it. But it isn’t more nutritious. Long open simmering in more water tends to lose a little more of the water-soluble vitamins than a short spell under pressure. Pick the method that suits your kitchen and your time.

A similar myth says soaking is only for people with pressure cookers. It’s the other way round. Without a cooker, soaking matters more, because it can take 30 minutes or more off a whole-pulse pot and saves real money on gas. Chana daal is a good example: our chana daal guide shows how a soak keeps the grains whole instead of splitting.

Cooking daal without a cooker: your questions