We believe that cooking is an important piece of the wellness puzzle and that everyone can make magic (or at least some avo toast) happen in the kitchen. Sometimes, you just need someone to show you where to start. Cook With Us offers smart cooking tips and tricks from pros, easy recipes that help you make the most of simple ingredients, and all-around support for your cooking journey. See All Learn how to make the coziest bowl of wild rice porridge for your next breakfast.
On hot summer days, cooling breakfasts like smoothies and yogurt bowls hit the spot. But when it's cold outside, you might find yourself yearning for something warm to thaw your frozen soul. That's where Mariah Gladstone's wild rice porridge recipe comes in hot (like, steaming hot).
On this week's episode of Well+Good's Cook With Us, Gladstone, founder of Indigikitchen, shares a three-ingredient recipe for delicious porridge with all the versatility of oatmeal. Meaning, you can serve it with any of your go-to toppings from almond butter to dark chocolate chips. (Gladstone herself chooses chia seeds, raw pumpkin seeds, and pecans.) The starring ingredient? Not oats, but wild rice.
Despite its name, Gladstone says wild rice isn't actually rice at all. "Wild rice isn't a true rice, but is, in fact, a grass seed which grows in the wetlands areas around the Great Lakes," she says. "[In Indigenous communities] wild rice was traditionally harvested by canoe, which is a practice that still continues to this day with one person pushing the canoe through the swampy areas of the wetlands and another person shaking the grass seeds into the bottom of the canoe. While a lot of rice is gathered this way, inevitably some of the seeds end up in the water, which helps the grass re-seed itself for future generations."
Wild rice also differs from other rice in its nutritional profile. While white rice contains about half a gram of fiber and two grams of protein per half-cup serving, the same amount of wild rice contains about four grams of fiber and 12 grams of protein. That means that the cup of wild rice Gladstone uses for this recipe will give you as much protein as two eggs (and that's without the toppings). Whoa.
Cranberry wild rice porridge
Ingredients:
1 cup of uncooked wild rice
4 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Maple syrup, to taste
1. Combine wild rice, water, and dried cranberries in a medium saucepan or a rice cooker and simmer until water is gone. Rice should be overcooked and extremely soft.
2. Pour entire contents into a blender and blend.
3. Serve with pepitas, maple syrup, and dried fruit.
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