This Vermicelli Upma or Seviyan Upma, is a traditional and popular South Indian breakfast recipe made with vermicelli (semiyan), vegetables, and a few spices in an Instant pot or stovetop pot. This semiya upma is an easy one-pot healthy recipe that you can cook quickly under 15 minutes in the pressure cooker.
Vermicelli is known by various local names in India. In Kannada, it is known as Shavige, In Telugu its Semiya or sevalu, and Seviyan in North India.
Vermicelli Upma is a Kids friendly recipe. It can be served for breakfast or packed for lunch box for both kids and adults.
Kids love it because they think it's pasta or noodles. Vermicelli is made from either rice or wheat. I usually use wheat semiya of either Bambino or MTR Brand.
Today I am showing how to make Vermicelli Upma in Instant Pot Pressure Cooker. I prefer to use Bambino vermicelli to make this upma.
The ratio of vermicelli and water is 1:1.25 in the Instant pot but may depend on the quality and type of vermicelli used.
You can make many variations of upma by replacing vermicelli (semiya) with other ingredients like Bread Upma, Rava Upma, Poha, Sabudana Upma, Broken Wheat/Dalia upma, Quinoa Upma, Cauliflower rice upma, Oats upma.
Nowadays, ready roasted vermicelli's are also available in the market, which makes the cooking faster and quicker.
Looking for more Breakfast ideas, check Restaurant Style Upma Recipe, Mandakki Usli, Spicy Tawa Idli, Vegetable Paniyaram, Spinach Poori, Avarekalu Upma, Hariyali Poha, Palak Moong Dal Dosa.
Which Vermicelli can i use for this recipe?
There's a huge variety of vermicelli varieties available in the market, e.g., made from rice, semolina, or wheat flour.
I have used Indian vermicelli made up of wheat flour which is roasted and readily available in Indian grocery stores or amazon. This is also used to make Vermicelli Kheer.
Vermicelli Upma Ingredients
First, let's gather all the ingredients required for making Semiya Upma.
- Vermicelli: use roasted vermicelli variety. It is available in any Indian grocery stores. If you don't find the pre-roasted one, then you can easily roast at your home.
- Mustard seeds, cumin, urad dal, and chana dal: are part of any South Indian tempering. You can increase the quantity if you desire.
- Green chilies: I have used Thai green chilies.
- Ginger: either use minced or grated fresh ginger.
- Curry Leaves: is added for flavoring, so dont skip it.
- Turmeric Powder: Optional. Its added for the color and its health benefits.
- Vegetables: I have used onions, carrots, capsicum, sweet corn, peas. You can also swap for other vegetables like broccoli, potato.
- Oil: You can use any cooking oil.
- Water: For making in Instant Pot add 1 ¼ cups of water for 1 cup of vermicelli.
- Lemon juice: freshly squeezed lemon juice.
- Coriander leaves: for garnish.
How to make Vermicelli Upma in Instant Pot
Firstly, dry roast the vermicelli in the instant pot itself until it turns light golden brown on Saute mode. I have used store-bought roasted bambino vermicelli for this recipe.
In SAUTE mode, Add ghee or oil. Once it's hot, add mustard seeds, jeera, urad dal, chana dal, and saute until dal changes into light golden brown.
Then add green chilies, ginger, curry leaves, hing and saute for a few seconds.
Add chopped onion and saute until onion becomes light brown.
Add mixed vegetables, roasted vermicelli, turmeric powder, water, salt, and mix well.
Close the Instant Pot with pressure valve to Sealing. Cook on High Pressure for 1 minute.
When the instant pot beeps, do a 5-minute NATURAL PRESSURE RELEASE (NPR). This means releasing the pressure manually 5 minutes after the instant pot beeps. You can also manually do a QUICK PRESSURE RELEASE (QR) if you are in a hurry.
Lastly, remove the steel insert from the instant pot. Squeeze some lemon juice and garnish with fresh coriander leaves, and gently fluff the vermicelli with a fork.
Serve Vermicelli Upma with coconut chutney.
Stovetop Pot Method
I have also shared how to make stovetop vegetable vermicelli upma on my blog.
Tips & Variations
- Make sure to use roasted vermicelli, raw vermicelli will become mushy.
- You can use vegetables of your choice.
- For kids box, you can replace oil with ghee, which makes it a healthier choice. Also, you can reduce the green chilies.
- You can also add roasted cashews or peanuts (groundnuts) to make it more healthy and crunchier.
- If you do not have an Instant pot, Check the instructions to make seviyan upma on stovetop.
- You can double the recipe with the same cooking time.
FAQS
If you have unroasted vermicelli or seviyan in your pantry, you need to roast in little oil for 3-4 minutes or until it gets light brown color.
I used roasted Bambino Vermicelli to make this seviyan upma, but you can use any other brand too.
Other Instant Pot Recipes
Instant Pot Vermicelli Upma (Semiya Upma)
Equipment
Ingredients
Measuring cup used 1 cup = 250 ml
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- ½ teaspoon jeera (cumin) seeds
- ½ teaspoon spilt urad dal
- 1 teaspoon chana dal (optional)
- 2 green chillies finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon ginger minced
- 1 stalk curry leaves
- a pinch hing(asafetida)
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 1 cup mix veggies (carrot,beans,peas,capsicum,corn)
- 1 cup Bambino vermicelli (semiya) roasted
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder (haldi)
- 1 ¼ cups water
- salt to taste
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 tablespoon coriander (cilantro) for garnish
Instructions
Instant Pot Method:
- Dry roast the vermicelli in the instant pot itself until it turns light golden brown on Saute mode. I have used store-bought roasted bambino vermicelli for this recipe.
- In SAUTE mode, Add ghee or oil. Once it's hot, add mustard seeds, jeera, urad dal, chana dal, and saute until dal changes into light golden brown.
- Then add green chilies, ginger, curry leaves, hing and saute for a few seconds.
- Add chopped onion and saute until onion becomes light brown.
- Add mixed vegetables, roasted vermicelli, turmeric powder, water, salt, and mix well.
- Close the Instant Pot with pressure valve to Sealing. Cook on High Pressure for 1 minute.
- When the instant pot beeps, do a 5-minute NATURAL PRESSURE RELEASE (NPR), which means release pressure manually 5 minutes after the instant pot beeps. You can also manually do a QUICK PRESSURE RELEASE (QR) if you are in a hurry.
- Remove the steel insert from the instant pot, add lemon juice and garnish with fresh coriander leaves, and gently fluff the vermicelli with a fork.
- Serve Vermicelli Upma with coconut chutney.
Video
Notes
- Make sure to use roasted vermicelli, raw vermicelli will become mushy.
- You can use vegetables of your choice.
- For kids box, you can replace oil with ghee, which makes it a healthier choice. Also, you can reduce the green chilies.
- You can also add roasted cashews or peanuts (groundnuts) to make it more healthy and crunchier.
- If you do not have an Instant pot, Check the instructions to make seviyan upma on stovetop.
- You can double the recipe with the same cooking time.
Nutrition
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Ramya says
Tried this for breakfast, came out really good and very quick. Will make this often. Thanks so much for the recipe ?
bhavana says
Thanks ramya for letting me know ,glad it helped you.