Millet is a delicious and nutritious alternative to corn polenta. Millet polenta will set up firm enough to fry or bake. I love how it takes on a deliciously crispy exterior. It can be a quick and easy side dish or serve it with a hearty pasta sauce for a main dish.
Flavouring Millet Polenta
Millet polenta is perfect for all sorts of different flavours. You can add flavour directly into the cooked millet, or top it with a rich sauce. Here are a few delicious serving options:
- Add in 1/2 cup of mixed fresh herbs to the cooling millet. A combination of parsley and chives is delicious.
- Stir in 2 cloves of diced garlic, 2 tbsp of chopped basil and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese into the millet.
- Add 1/4 cup of onion and 2 tbsp of chopped rosemary to freshly cooked millet so that the onion cooks slightly as the millet cools.
- Top oven baked millet with slices of mozzarella cheese, and broil for 2 minutes until the cheese is bubbling.
- Serve millet with any richly flavoured sauce. Tomato sauce, pesto and ratatouille are all perfect with millet.
Millet Polenta
Millet polenta is delicious as a side dish when served with butter and fresh herbs. It can be sliced and fried as a replacement for pasta with your favourite sauces. Or top it with cheese and bake it. See the section above for six different ways to flavour millet polenta.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Side dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 cup of millet (see notes if you want to soak and ferment the millet beforehand)
- 3 cups of broth
- 3/4 tsp salt, to taste
- Herbs and other flavours (see section above for options)
Instructions
- Mix millet and broth in a pot.
- Bring it to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The millet is cooked when the water has fully absorbed.
- Serve the millet right away for soft polenta. Alternatively, press the millet into a greased pan and leave it to cool for a few hours or overnight.
- When you’re ready to cook the millet, turn the millet out onto a cutting board. It should come out as one big loaf. Slice into thick slices for cooking.
- Either fry in olive oil on medium heat until brown or bake on an oiled cookie sheet at 400 F for 20 minutes.
Notes
- I always pre-fermented my millet to improve the nutritional value of the millet. Here’s how to ferment millet prior to cooking.
- I like making millet either in a loaf pan for square pieces or in springform cake pan
(affiliate links) for triangular wedges.
Keywords: Gluten free, vegan, corn-free, diary-free, egg-free, simple, healthy, baked, fried, 5 ingredients or less, dinner, breakfast, lunch, fall, winter, spring
We found that this makes a nice break from rice as a side-dish to everything. Super nice with some tomato-based veggie sidedish like a ratatouille. Thanks!
★★★★★