Bubur Kacang Hijau: Indonesian Mung Bean Dessert With Coconut Milk
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Bubur Kacang Hijau is a warm, creamy mung bean porridge sweetened with palm sugar and finished with rich coconut milk. Comforting enough for breakfast, satisfying enough for dessert.
Bubur Kacang Hijau
Bubur Kacang Hijau literally means green mung bean porridge. It’s mung beans cooked in coconut milk and palm sugar, with a porridge-like texture. So it is a sweet porridge.
You can find this hugely popular street food in almost every corner of Indonesia. It is often paired with black glutinous rice porridge, called Bubur Ketan Hitam.
Here, I’m sharing with you the recipe for the mung bean one.
A Modest Mung Bean Dessert Full of Goodness
If you ever go to Indonesia, you may see many street food vendors who sell ‘Bubur Kacang Ijo dan Ketan Item’. That literally means Mung bean porridge and black glutinous rice porridge.
Often, this pair is enjoyed for breakfast, and you can see street hawkers selling them in the AM. However, they’re also famous as sweet snacks enjoyed in the afternoon.
And during the fasting month of Ramadan, this Indonesian mung bean dessert becomes one of the most sought-after food items for breaking the fast.
This is because the impressive health benefits of Mung beans are well-known. But if you’re wondering, you can check out Healthline’s article on the health benefits of Mung beans here.
So really, having this sweet mung bean porridge in the morning to start the day won’t be a bad idea, imo.
Why You’ll Love Bubur Kacang Hijau
- 🥥 That coconut milk makes it extra creamy — it adds a rich, velvety finish that pulls the whole dish together.
- 🍯 Palm sugar gives a deep, caramel-like sweetness — not overly sweet, just perfectly balanced.
- 🫘 Mung beans are soft and filling — hearty enough to keep you full without feeling heavy.
- ☀️ Works for breakfast or dessert — flexible, satisfying, and good at any time of day.
- 🌿 Naturally wholesome ingredients — no artificial anything, just simple, real food.
- 🍲 Best served warm — there’s something deeply satisfying about a hot bowl of this in the morning.
- 💰 Very budget-friendly — mung beans are cheap, easy to find, and go a long way
- 🇮🇩 A beloved Indonesian classic — generations of families have started their mornings with this bowl.
Simple ingredients
Traditionally, this Mung bean dessert uses only coconut milk, palm sugar, salt, and pandan leaves, making it 100% vegan. However, if you like, you can substitute the coconut milk with regular cow’s milk and the pandan leaf with vanilla. It is equally yummy.
How to Make Bubur Kacang Hijau
Essentially, you want to cook the mung bean on its own first until it’s fully cooked and soft. Just boil it in plenty of water, without anything else.
It usually takes me around 20-25 minutes to cook the lentils. Do take care and keep stirring every now and then to ensure the mung beans cook evenly.
Once the beans are soft and cooked, you can add the sugar, salt, pandan leaf, and ½ cup of coconut milk. Continue cooking until it simmers for about 2-3 minutes.
Then you heat the remaining coconut milk with a pinch of salt and pandan leaf. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes until the milk looks shiny.
Serve the porridge in a bowl and drizzle the coconut milk over it.
Top Tips to Make a Delicious Bubur Kacang Hijau
- Try not to skip stirring the mung beans the first time you boil them. Otherwise, the lentils won’t cook evenly.
- A little bit of salt in a sweet dessert will elevate the flavor. So do not skip the salt.
- When cooking the coconut milk, bring it to a boil, then simmer until the oil begins to form and separate from the milk at the edges. This way, the coconut milk won’t go bad quickly.
Storing Matter
Technically, you can freeze your Bubur Kacang Hijau. It keeps well in the freezer up to 2 months. Take it out of the freezer and leave it to thaw overnight in the fridge/ refrigerator the night before serving.
Reheat the porridge until it is boiling and piping hot. Eat the thawed porridge within 3 days and do not refreeze.
You can store your mung bean porridge in the fridge for up to 5 days.
More Indonesian Sweet Dessert Recipes
I hope you find this Bubur Kacang Hijau recipe intriguing and want to try cooking it. If you do, please let me know what you think. Do you like it? If so, would you share your views about it in the comments below (leave a reply)?
And before you go, don’t forget to check my other Indonesian sweet dessert recipes that you may equally love.
- Serabi Kuah: Indonesian pancakes with palm sugar syrup and coconut milk.
- Kolak Biji Salak: Indonesian sweet potato balls in palm sugar and coconut milk.
- Martabak Manis: Indonesian sweet, thick pancake.
- Dadar Gulung: rolled pancake with coconut and palm sugar stuffing.
Last but not least, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Pinterest. To sneak a peek at what’s cooking in my kitchen.
Take care and all the best.
Mung bean dessert with coconut milk
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ cup mung beans.
- ½ cup palm sugar jaggery.
- ½ teaspoon salt.
- 4 cup water.
- 1 cup coconut milk.
- 1 pandan leaf see the note.
Instructions
- Wash and rinse the Mung beans 2-3 times, and boil the beans in 4 cups of water at medium heat with the lid on. Once the water reaches boiling point, you may want to take the lid off.
- Stir the beans every now and again to make sure that all the lentils are evenly cooked. Usually, it takes me about 20-25 minutes.
- Once the beans look plumped up and cooked, add in the sugar, salt, and ½ of pandan leaf. Cover the pot and cook further for about 5 minutes until all the beans soften. Keep an eye on it and stir it every so often to make sure everything is cooked. Try to mash some of them so the porridge will look thick and taste more flavoursome.
- Then add in ½ cup of the coconut milk, stir the porridge, let it cook and simmer for another 5 minutes. Your bubur kacang Hijau is ready. Set aside.
- In a separate pan, boil the remaining ½ cup of coconut milk with the other ½ of pandan leaf, and a pinch of salt until it boils. Once it reaches boiling point, let it simmer for at least 10 minutes until you can see the creamy coconut milk looks slightly oily. Turn the heat off.
- Serve the Mung bean porridge in a bowl and pour the coconut milk over.
Notes
- Pandan leaf has a very exotic and distinct fragrance. Here in the UK, the pandan leaf we get at the shop is imported from Thailand. And the leaves are very long. Indonesia’s pandan leaves are much shorter. Therefore, for this recipe, we only need one piece of Thai pandan leaf. If you find it difficult to find, you can substitute it with vanilla. I can only say that the Pandan aroma suits better with coconut milk.
- If palm sugar (jaggery) is not available to you, you can substitute it with dark soft brown sugar or dark muscovado sugar.
Nutrition
Devy founded So Yummy Recipes and Drizzling Flavor to share her love of food after exploring various cultures and cuisines for more than two decades. Her mission is to help others easily recreate traditional and non-traditional food with readily available ingredients. Her works have been featured in Reader’s Digest, Al Jazeera, MSN, Yahoo, Bon Appétit, and more.
