Ramadan Meal Planning – Suhoor

I have been wanting to do a round up post since long time, but somehow I get so carried away with the drafts that I have. So I keep going on posting whatever I have to, but now I thought, with the month of Ramadan coming, why not I collect a few of my recipes and pool it at one place so that it becomes easier for all of you to find out. 🙂

 

“O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may become righteous. ” (Surah Al Baqarah: 183)

 

Ramadan, I stress is not about eating, rather controlling your food intake for maximum benefit. A heavy Suhoor will not allow you to have a good working day. A heavy Iftar likewise will not give you the energy to go ahead with the long night prayers. To take maximum advantage of our time, it is important to have light meals that gives you enough energy to keep going through the days.  I am thankful to have people in the family who don’t believe in heavy meals. Even the kids like something light. We hardly fry anything during Iftar time, even though I do make something or the other during the weekends, since we have late dinners then. As I go by the post, I will split how our normal Ramadan day looks like…

 

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Suhoor:

 

Suhoor, as you all know, is the pre dawn meal. The below hadith implies how important that meal is to a fasting person:

 

It was narrated that Anas ibn Maalik (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Eat suhoor, for in suhoor there is blessing.”

Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 1923; Muslim, 1095. 

 

The Suhoor gives you the strength to go through the activities of the day, whether it is work at office or housework, so we need to ensure that the meal we have is very effective. However, we have to also make sure that we do not overeat as well.

 

There was a time when we used to have full meals of rice, two types of curry, fish fry and a vegetable stir fry for Suhoor. It was literally like eating lunch early in the morning. The whole meal used to make us so drowsy at school, that we would complain to umma about it. But she would say her normal dialogue, “How will you go through the day? Won’t you feel hungry?” It took us so many years to make umma stop that tradition and slowly we moved onto lighter meals, and still now, I follow the same. We ensure to drink at least two glasses of water and have three dates as a part of our meal. Some meals that we love to have for suhoor are appended below:

 

Cooked Oatmeal – Oats is considered to be a very filling and fiber rich breakfast at any time. It keep you full and fuels a lot of energy for a long period of time. What more, it gets done so fast without much effort. Here a few ideas for you to refer:

• Oats Porridge with Dates and Honey
• Nutella Oats – especially for the kids! 😉
• Banana Almond Oatmeal
• Chia Oatmeal with Cinnamon Apples

 

Overnight Oats – nothing is as convenient as overnight oats. You can make it the previous day and just dump it in fridge, just to have it in the morning. When combined with a variety of fruits and nuts, it is a wholesome meal as well. Some ideas for you:

• Strawberry Walnut Overnight Oats
• Tropical Overnight Oats
• Fig Almond Overnight Oats
• Banana Peanut Butter Overnight Oats
• Grilled Pineapple Pecan Overnight Oats
• Blueberry Chia Overnight Oats

If you don’t like too much bites but still would like to have something quick, then you can try the Vegan Mixed Berry Overnight Smoothie!

 

Other Suhoor options – It is not necessary that we have oats everyday! Anybody would get bored of having it all the time, right? Here are some of the meals that we have at times:

• Avalum Pazhavum ~ Beaten Rice Flakes with Plaintains
• Aval Kuzhachathu ~ Rice Flakes Banana Mash
• Puttu with bananas and little sugar
• Wholewheat Flax Banana Bread
• Wholewheat Oats Apple Cinnamon Loaf
• Wholewheat Dates Cake
• Chakkara Gothambu ~ Whole Wheat in Jaggery

 

If you are thinking sweet is all that we have for Suhoor, then you are wrong! Yes we prefer having more sweet than savory, but here are some meals that we like to have during that time:

• Umma’s Scrambled Eggs
• Cucumber Labneh Sandwich
• Chicken Salad Sandwich
• Savory Semiya/ Vermicelli

 

We have this with a side of tea or coffee, though we prefer to avoid them and have milk instead, to avoid the dehydration effect that these can cause. On days we fail to wake up on time, we have a cup of milk with cornflakes, or dunk a couple of slice of bread or digestive biscuits, and finish it off with water and three dates.

 

InShaAllah, tomorrow I will share some quick and convenient Iftar meal ideas, so stay tuned… 🙂