Breakfast and Dinner Foods Recipes

Aappa

Plain Hoppers

Plain hoppers, or aappa, or appam depending on who is talking, are the bowl-shaped rice and coconut pancake Sri Lanka eats for breakfast and dinner both. You swirl a thin, fermented rice-flour batter up the sides of a small curved pan until the rim goes crisp and lacy and the middle stays soft and just a little sour. They take a bit of practice, and a hopper pan helps a lot, but once the swirl clicks you will be making them on a loop. Eat them with sambol, with curry, or just with a pinch of sugar.

Bittara Aappa

Egg Hoppers

Egg hoppers, bittara appa in Sinhala, are bowl-shaped pancakes of fermented rice and coconut with an egg cracked into the middle as they cook. The white sets into the soft, spongy centre and the yolk stays just runny, so one hopper gives you crisp lacy rim, soft middle and warm peppery yolk all at once. Top it with lunu miris and a grind of black pepper and you have the breakfast people queue for at Sri Lankan street stalls. Call it an egg appam if you like. It is the same thing, a plain hopper with a savoury heart.

Pol Roti

Sri Lankan Coconut Roti

Pol roti is Sri Lanka's everyday coconut flatbread. You knead flour and plenty of freshly grated coconut into a simple dough, press it flat by hand, and dry-griddle it until golden and speckled. It's dense, a little chewy, and flecked with sweet coconut, and people eat it for breakfast or dinner with fiery lunu miris, a curry, or just a smear of jaggery. Some also spell it pol rotti. You need only a handful of ingredients and no oil at all.

Sri Lankan Pittu

Sri Lankan pittu, also spelled puttu, is roasted rice flour layered with grated coconut and a little salt, packed into a tall mould and steamed until it becomes soft, crumbly cylinders. On its own it's mild, fluffy and barely sweet, which is exactly why it works: you eat it for breakfast or dinner with thick coconut milk, kadala (chickpea) curry, dhal, lunu miris or ripe banana and sugar. It's usually made with white or red rice flour, often with nutty kurakkan (finger millet) added, and you don't need anything more than flour, water, coconut and a steamer.

Indi Aappa

Sri Lankan String Hoppers

You might know them as indi aappa in Sinhala or idiyappam, sometimes noolputtu, in Tamil. They are delicate steamed nests of rice-flour noodles. Press a soft rice-flour dough through a string hopper mould onto small woven mats, steam for a few minutes, and each little spiral turns tender and pillowy. Mild on their own and built to carry flavour, string hoppers are a beloved breakfast and dinner across Sri Lanka, served with kiri hodi, lunu miris, dhal curry or pol sambol.

Sri Lankan Godamba Roti

Sri Lankan godamba roti, often searched for as Sri Lankan parotta, is a thin, soft, stretchy flatbread made from a rested, oiled dough of plain flour, water and salt, flung and stretched until almost transparent, folded into a square or coil, and cooked on a hot griddle until golden and supple. Light, foldable and a little chewy, it's the everyday roti Sri Lankans wrap around dhal, chicken or fish curry, and it's the very bread that gets chopped into kottu. Also spelled gothamba roti, it needs only a handful of ingredients and a little patience with the dough.

Kiri Appa

Sri Lankan Milk Hopper

A Sri Lankan milk hopper, called kiri appa in Sinhala, is a bowl-shaped fermented rice-flour and coconut pancake. Thick coconut milk gets stirred into the centre as it cooks, so the middle sets soft, creamy and almost custardy while the rim turns crisp and lacy. It's also known as a kiri hopper. Crisp at the edge, silky in the middle, made to go with lunu miris, seeni sambol or a mild curry. If a plain hopper is the everyday version and the egg hopper is the savoury one, the milk hopper is the one you make when you want something properly soft in the middle.

Pani Appa

Sri Lankan Honey Hopper

A Sri Lankan honey hopper, or pani appa in Sinhala, is a fermented rice and coconut hopper sweetened with jaggery and folded in half in the pan. Ignore the name: the 'honey' is pani, the sweetness of the kithul palm, either grated jaggery stirred through the batter or the dark syrup drizzled on afterwards, not bee honey. This is the jaggery-in-the-batter version, so every bite is sweet and faintly caramel, with a soft middle and thin, lacy edges. It's a much-loved breakfast and teatime sweet, and the batter is the same fermented rice and coconut one that makes a plain hopper.

Kurakkan Puttu

Kurakkan Pittu

Kurakkan pittu, also called kurakkan puttu or finger millet pittu, is just pittu made with kurakkan (finger millet) flour instead of white rice flour, steamed in cylinders with grated coconut. It's earthy, nutty and almost chocolate-brown, and it's the wholegrain favourite in the pittu family, prized for its high fibre, its iron and calcium, and its gentle, slow effect on blood sugar. Soft, crumbly and mild on its own, this Sri Lankan finger millet pittu is made to go with thick coconut milk, kadala or dhal, a fiery lunu miris, or ripe banana and a little jaggery.

Mun Kiribath

Mung Kiribath

Mung kiribath, also called mun kiribath or green gram milk rice, is Sri Lankan milk rice cooked together with mung beans, then enriched with thick coconut milk, pressed flat and cut into diamonds. The mung beans bring protein, a gentle nutty bite and that speckled green-flecked look, so it's a more sustaining version of plain kiribath. Like all milk rice, this is the dish of auspicious mornings and new beginnings, served warm with fiery lunu miris, sweet seeni sambol, or a little jaggery.

Kola Kanda

Kola Kenda

Kola kenda is Sri Lanka's herbal green porridge. You cook soft red rice, blend it with fresh juice from a leafy green and coconut milk, then sip it warm, usually first thing in the morning. You will also see it written kola kanda. In English it goes by herbal porridge or green porridge. It tastes mild, earthy and gently creamy, and it is taken on an empty stomach with a small piece of jaggery on the side. This is the master method: learn the base once and you can use almost any edible green you like.

Gotukola Kanda

Gotukola Kenda

Gotukola kenda, also written gotukola kanda, is the herbal porridge everyone on the island knows best. You blend fresh gotu kola (Centella asiatica, the green called centella or pennywort in English) into soft-cooked red rice and coconut milk until it's smooth. It's lightly salted, faintly grassy and gently warming, and people sip it at sunrise for its long held reputation for memory, glowing skin and good circulation. Honestly, it's the simplest breakfast there is, and one of the most nourishing.

Heen Bovitiya Kenda

Heen Bovitiya Kanda

Heen bovitiya kanda is a Sri Lankan herbal porridge, a warm green cup made by blending the leaves of heen bovitiya (Osbeckia octandra) into soft-cooked red rice and coconut milk. It's one of the island's best-loved kola kenda, the leaf porridges sipped at dawn. And this one carries a particular reputation: of all the herbs people reach for, heen bovitiya is the one tied most closely to the liver. It's gently bitter, rounded out by coconut and a little garlic, and honestly, it tastes far better than a porridge with a medicinal job has any right to.

Hathawariya Kanda

Hathawariya Kenda

Hathawariya kenda is a Sri Lankan herbal porridge. You blend hathawariya, the wild asparagus known to botanists as Asparagus racemosus and in Ayurveda as shatavari, into soft-cooked red rice and coconut milk. It's mild, faintly grassy and soothing, part of the kola kenda family of green breakfast tonics. What sets it apart is hathawariya's long reputation as a restorative, traditionally given to new mothers and anyone needing to build back strength. Also written hathawariya kanda, it's a quiet, nourishing way to start the day.

Roast Paan

Sri Lankan Roast Paan

Roast paan is that crusty golden loaf you see in every neighbourhood bakery, deep dark crust outside, soft springy crumb inside. The name comes from the bake itself: a lean wheat flour and yeast dough gets shaped, proofed and baked, then baked again until the crust turns deep brown and properly crackly. That second bake is the roast. Tear it warm and dunk it in dhal, seeni sambol, katta sambol, or any curry. This twice-baked Sri Lankan bread is breakfast and dinner for half the island.

Idli

Sri Lankan Idli

Sri Lankan idli, also written idly and known in English as steamed rice cakes, are soft, fluffy little discs steamed from a naturally fermented batter of rice and urad dal (ulundu). Light, mildly tangy and almost fat-free, idli are a much-loved breakfast across Sri Lanka, especially in Tamil and Muslim homes and at the small eating houses people call hotels. South Indian in origin and completely at home on the Sri Lankan table, they're gentle on the stomach and built to soak up sambar, dhal curry and coconut chutney.

Thosai

Sri Lankan Dosai

Sri Lankan dosai, spelled thosai across much of the island and known elsewhere as dosa, is a thin, crisp, golden crepe made from a naturally fermented batter of rice and skinned black lentils. You soak the grains, grind them smooth, leave the mix overnight until it's light and gently sour, then spread it paper-thin on a hot griddle. It cooks until lacy and crackling at the edges. Mild, savoury and a little tangy, dosai is one of the island's most loved breakfast and dinner foods, especially in Tamil homes. Serve it with sambar, dhal curry and fresh coconut chutney.