Breakfast Wheat Berries
Updated Feb. 8, 2023
- Total Time
- About 1½ hours, mostly unsupervised simmering (plus overnight soaking)
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 1cup wheat berries
- 5cups water
- Salt to taste
- ¼cup honey, agave syrup or brown sugar, or more to taste
- ½ to 1teaspoon rose water, to taste
- 1teaspoon ground anise or fennel seeds
- ¾teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- ½cup raisins or other chopped dried fruit of choice
- ⅓cup chopped walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, or a mixture for garnish
- 2cups plain low-fat yogurt (optional)
- Pomegranate seeds for garnish (optional)
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
268 calories; 6 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 48 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 23 grams sugars; 9 grams protein; 798 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
The night before, combine wheat berries, 1 quart of the water and salt and bring to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 1 hour. Remove from heat, stir in the honey, agave syrup or sugar, rose water, anise or fennel seeds, cinnamon, nutmeg and raisins or dried fruit. Cover and leave overnight (or for 5 to 6 hours).
- Step 2
In the morning, add remaining cup of water to the wheat berries and bring to a simmer. Cook 30 to 45 minutes, stirring often, until berries are soft and splayed at one end. There should be some liquid surrounding the wheat berries (add more water if necessary). Taste and add more sweetener if desired.
- Step 3
Serve on their own with some of the liquid in the saucepan (stir in some milk if desired), or spoon about ⅓ cup yogurt into bowls and top with a generous spoonful of the berries, with some of the sweet broth. Top with a handful of chopped nuts and a few pomegranate seeds if desired.
- Advance preparation: The cooked wheat berries will keep for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. The dried fruit will continue to swell and will lose flavor, but it will be captured in the broth.
Private Notes
Comments
Used a pressure cooker to cook the wheat berries (1:3) for 30 minutes.
Didn't have rosewater but it still turned out great!
I loved the chewy texture of this breakfast. Next time I will cut down on the spices, particularly the fennel seed, which I found to be hard to take first thing in the morning, and also will cut down on the honey.
Way way too sweet. Next time I will cut the sugar by at least half.
My Egyptian grandmother made this in a different style and we called it “bah-LEE-la”: using cracked wheat instead of whole wheat berries, soaking the grain in milk overnight in the fridge, cooking in milk with cinnamon, then adding sugar, no fruit. I like this version a lot and so did my family. I plan to try it with some chopped apples.
I’m Egyptian and we call this dish Belilah. Would have been nice of the author to acknowledge. Obviously wheat berries and rose water are not ingredients you see in conventional American cooking.
I agree with others on cutting the honey. The raisins or dry fruit make it plenty sweet, and you can always add something more when eating/serving if desired. I slow-cooked over night with IntantPot, using 4 cups of water. There was still a lot of liquid left when cooked, so might reduce that even more. Also, it was a HUGE amount of cereal for one person, one day. There are maybe 4 or 5 servings from1 cup of wheat berries. I guess I will be eating it all week.
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