Sourdough Ragi Paniyaram Recipe using sourdough discard. Healthy, vegan paniyarams to make for a quick breakfast or snack with gluten free option as well.
Paniyarams are easy to make portion friendly and cute finger foods.
Ever since I tried the Onion Rava Dosa using the discard, I’m even more pumped up to use them in our day to day cooking.
If you are looking for recipes using sourdough discard or unfed starter, this is one more recipe to the add to your repertoire.
When I tried this paniyaram for the first time, I had just fed my sourdough starter and wanted to use the discard immediately without letting it accumulate in the fridge.
So decided on making this for my dinner. I mixed up the batter, let it sit while I went about making the chutney and dosas for the others.
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All in all the batter had a resting time of 30 mins tops and I liked how they tasted with the chutney but decided to check how it would taste with a longer resting time.
So this time, when I fed my starter at 5.30 in the morning, mixed up the batter immediately with the discard and left it on the counter.
I made these paniyarams at 8.30 a.m while fixing breakfast for all of us and oh wow the texture turned out to be the best with 3 hours resting time.
The fermentation of the batter turned out great and the texture was just like that of the regular paniyarams.
I served these with onion tomato chutney.
If you have a lot of accumulated sourdough discard sitting in your fridge, you could try out this instant Sourdough Jalebi.
What if I don’t have Sourdough Discard?
Replace the quantity of sourdough discard with slightly sour yogurt or curd. When I had to make gluten free meals just for myself, this is what I used to do.
Even if you do not have yogurt, use sour buttermilk & skip using water to mix the batter. Before cooking, just add a pinch of baking soda or fruit salt & beat it well and start cooking paniyarams.
Points to note:
- You can use any gluten free flour in the place of ragi flour in this recipe.
- Instead of any gluten free flour, you can also use whole wheat flour or make with just rice flour alone.
- The water added will need to be adjusted based on the flour.
- You can also sauté grated coconut along with onions to add more texture and aroma.
- You can also add other veggies to the batter after sautéing them along with the onions.
- The resting time of the batter will depend on your choice of how sour you prefer the taste of your paniyarams to be.
- Instead of paniyarams you can also make them as Oothappams.
You can check out this Sourdough Starter to make from scratch if want to make one.
Sourdough Ragi Paniyaram Recipe details below:

Sourdough Ragi Paniyaram
Ingredients
- Sprouted Ragi or Plain Ragi flour - 1 cup
- Rice flour - 1/4 cup
- Sourdough discard - 1/4 cup unfed starter
- Onion - 1 finely chopped
- Ginger - 1/2 tsp grated
- Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
- Urad dal - 1/2 tsp
- Salt - to taste
- Oil - 2 tsp + to cook
Instructions
Prepare the batter:
- Take ragi flour, rice flour and sourdough discard in a bowl.
- Add water little by little and mix to a thick batter.
- Close the bowl and let it rest for minimum 30 mins upto 3 hours.
Prepare the seasoning:
- Heat a pan with oil.
- Add mustard seeds and let it crackle.
- Add urad dal and roast till it changes colour to golden brown.
- Add ginger, onions and sauté till the onions turn pink in colour.
- Transfer to the batter.
- Add salt to taste, enough water if needed and mix well to thick batter of dropping consistency.
Cook the paniyarams:
- Heat a paniyaram pan (ebelskiver pan) and drop in 1/2 to 1 tsp oil into each indent.
- Fill each indent with batter upto the brim and drizzle few tsps of oil all over.
- Reduce the flame to simmer & close with a lid.
- Let it cook for 1 to 2 mins.
- Open the lid and gently turn over each paniyaram using a skewer.
- Let the other side cook for a min. No need to close with lid this time.
- Transfer the cooked paniyarams to a plate.
- Repeat the same process till the batter is finished.
- Serve this sourdough ragi paniyarams hot with any chutney of your choice.

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