Skip to content
FriendsPantry

Grains, rice & flours · Flours

Semolina

Coarse, golden granules milled from durum wheat; used for pasta, upma, halwa, puddings and dusting pizza peels.

Also called: sooji, suji, rava, irmik, durum wheat semolina

26 recipes with it

What it is

Semolina is the coarse, gritty middling of wheat, most often hard durum wheat, which gives it a pale yellow colour. Fine semolina (sooji or rava in India) cooks quickly into porridges, halwa and upma; finely re-milled 'semola rimacinata' is used for pasta and bread. It is different from cornmeal, which comes from maize, and from couscous, which is semolina rolled into pellets.

Triticum durum

How it’s used

  • Upma, rava dosa and rava idli
  • Sooji halwa, revani and basbousa
  • Fresh egg-free pasta with durum semolina
  • Dusting peels and trays so dough slides
  • Semolina pudding and gnocchi alla romana

Characteristics

Texture
Sandy and granular; creamy when cooked in liquid.
When cooked
Swells quickly in hot liquid; toasting it in fat first keeps grains separate in upma and halwa.
Sold as
ground
Cooking uses
Commonly cooked, Suitable for baking, Suitable for boiling, Used for thickening

Storage

Pantry-stable. Airtight in a cool, dry cupboard; dry-roasting before storing helps deter weevils in warm climates.

Diet, allergens and safety

Contains Wheat, Gluten.

  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan
  • Dairy-free
  • Egg-free
  • Gluten-free
  • Nut-free
  • Soy-free
  • Caffeine-free
  • Contains wheat and gluten; unsuitable for people with coeliac disease or a wheat allergy.

Nutrition per 100 g

Energy
360 kcal
Protein
12.68 g
Carbohydrate
72.83 g
Fat
1.05 g
Fibre
3.9 g
Sugars
— g

USDA FoodData Central: Semolina, enriched.

Substitutes

Optional — what works if you don’t have it, and how it changes the dish.

  • Cornmeal — For dusting or polenta-style porridge; it is gluten-free and tastes of corn.

Related ingredients

Recipes with semolina

See all 26

14 more

More flours