Bubur kacang hijau is Indonesia's sweet mung-bean porridge — whole green beans simmered slow and soft with palm sugar, then enriched with coconut milk and perfumed by pandan and a knob of bruised ginger. Thick, sweet and warming, it is sold from morning carts as breakfast, ladled out as an afternoon snack, and made at home as a homely dessert. A drizzle of coconut milk over the top is the finishing touch.
Sweet mung-bean porridge is an everyday folk dish across Java and throughout Indonesia, resting on the islands' familiar pairing of cheap, protein-rich green beans with palm sugar and coconut; no single inventor or place of origin is recorded. The dish belongs to a wider Southeast and East Asian family of sweetened mung-bean preparations, and within Indonesia it is firmly a street-cart and home staple rather than a regional specialty. Vendors often sell it alongside its sibling bubur ketan hitam, the black glutinous-rice porridge.
The beans cook down to a thick, just-grainy porridge that is deeply sweet from palm sugar, with the molasses edge of gula merah running through. Coconut milk makes it round and rich, pandan lends a green-vanilla note, and the ginger leaves a faint warm tingle at the finish. Some beans stay whole for a little bite among the softness.
Mung beans are notoriously slow to soften, so they are soaked then simmered long and gently until the skins burst and the starch thickens the liquid into porridge; rushing it over high heat leaves the centres hard. Palm sugar is added only after the beans are tender, since sugar slows the softening if introduced too early. The coconut milk goes in near the end and is barely simmered so it enriches without splitting, while bruised pandan and ginger steep their aromatics throughout.
Variations
A close cousin, bubur kacang ijo Madura, is famously thick and sometimes thinned with a splash of coffee. Cooks add black glutinous rice for bubur campur, fold in durian or sticky-rice balls, or serve it cold over ice in hot weather. The coconut-milk drizzle can be replaced by santan kental (thick coconut cream) for extra richness.
On the Palate
Where Bubur Kacang Hijau sits in the Indonesian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
8 steps · 15 min active + 1 hour waiting
- 160 min
Rinse the mung beans and soak them in water for at least an hour to shorten cooking.
- 25 min
Drain, then simmer the beans in fresh water with bruised pandan and ginger.
- 340 min
Cook gently, topping up water as needed, until the beans are very soft and beginning to burst.
Watch outSimmer the soaked mung beans low and long until they're very soft and start to burst; rush them over high heat and the centers stay stubbornly hard.
- 43 min
Stir in palm sugar and a small pinch of salt until dissolved.
Watch outAdd the palm sugar only after the beans are tender; sugar added early slows the softening and leaves the beans firm.
- 510 min
Continue simmering until the porridge thickens to your liking.
- 64 min
Add part of the coconut milk and warm through without boiling hard.
Watch outAdd the coconut milk near the end and warm it through without a hard boil, or it splits and goes grainy.
- 72 min
Remove the pandan and ginger and adjust sweetness.
- 81 min
Ladle into bowls and finish each with a drizzle of the remaining coconut milk.
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