Today, we revisit a classic Filipino breakfast recipe and give it a colourful twist using purple yams. So, here is our delicious ube champorado, creamy rice porridge with ube halaya. We're sure you'll love it!
Traditional champorado consists of glutinous rice cooked in water and flavoured with chocolate or cocoa powder. This thick and chocolaty porridge is served hot or cold, topped with milk and salted dried fish.
In our recipe, we swapped chocolate with ube halaya (purple yam jam). Ube halaya is a staple ingredient in Filipino cuisine, and it's made from sweetened mashed purple yams (called ube in Filipino).
Ube spread gives this rice porridge a wonderful purple colour and a subtly sweet and earthy flavour!
You can find ube halaya at your local Asian food store or online. But if you can get hold of some ube, you can easily make ube spread from scratch. It's cheap, healthy, and convenient!
We have a homemade ube butter recipe that's perfect for making ube spread.
Our ube halaya is low in sugars, has no food colourants, and because we added a little coconut oil, it works both as a spread and a butter alternative for bakes.
To make our ube champorado recipe dairy-free and vegan, we replaced condensed milk with coconut milk, which pairs wonderfully with the flavour of ube.
We also found a brilliant plant-based alternative to dried fish: dried mango slices.
They're deliciously chewy and look like strips of salted fish, perfect as a topping for the ube champorado. They're optional, so feel free to omit them if you prefer.
And finally, the rice. Glutinous rice is a must for preparing champorado.
Despite the name, glutinous rice has no gluten. It's called glutinous because it turns glue-like and sticky when cooked due to its high amount of starch.
Glutinous rice is also called sweet rice or sticky rice, and you can find it at your local Asian food store or online.
Short-grain sushi rice, risotto, or long-grain Thai Jasmine rice are good alternatives to glutinous rice if you can't get it.
When you prepare the ube champorado, we recommend following the packet instructions for the rice cooking times as each brand or rice variety may behave differently.
Check the rice every few minutes while it cooks; make sure it's cooked through but avoid overcooking it, or the rice porridge will get soggy and mushy.
We hope you'll enjoy this ube champorado recipe as much as we did! And if you're looking for more recipes with ube halaya, we think you'll like this vegan ube flan and soft ube bread loaf. Give them a go!
Ingredients
| To Serve | |
| Tinned Coconut Milk | 100 mL |
| Dried Mango | to taste |
| Ube Porridge | |
| Glutinous Rice (Sweet Sticky Rice) | 120 g |
| Water | 400 mL |
| Ube Spread (Ube Halaya)recipe | 80 g |
| Maple Syrup (or sugar or erythritol) | 2 tbsp |
Step 1
We recommend using glutinous rice (sweet sticky rice) to make the champorado.
If you can't find it, you can use white rice varieties that have a sticky texture when cooked, like sushi rice, risotto rice, or jasmine rice.
Rinse the rice a few times until the water runs clear, and then add it to a pot with the given water.
Bring to a boil over low heat and cook the rice covered until it's tender and cooked through, occasionally stirring it so it won't stick to the bottom of the pan.
For the cooking times, we recommend following the packet instructions as each rice type or brand may be slightly different.
Step 2
Now, tip in the ube halaya (purple yam spread) and stir well until it's incorporated and you have a purple rice porridge.
You can find ube halaya online or at your local Asian food store, but you can also make it from scratch with our easy vegan ube butter recipe.
Now, remove the pot from the heat and stir in a sweetener of your choice, like maple syrup, caster sugar, or sugar-free erythritol.
Step 3
Divide the ube champorado among serving bowls and enjoy it hot or cold with a drizzle of tinned coconut milk.
Champorado is usually topped with salty dried fish, but you can serve it with dried mango slices for a vegan alternative (as we did).
And if you have some ube halaya left, you can use it in lots of delicious recipes like these ube butter cookies or ube mochi waffles!
Tips
Instead of dried mango, you can also top this ube rice porridge with coconut flakes and toasted almond flakes for a crunchy finish.