How To Make Cream Of Wheat: 3 Methods (2024)

Last Updated on 20th August 2021 by

Warm, mushy cream of wheat is a staple of the Southern United States diet, usually served for breakfast. It’s made from milled wheat and known in various places around the world as porridge or farina. Depending on where you go and who is making it, cream of wheat can be made in a lot of different ways and served with a variety of foods.

Some people use it as a comfort food to have before going to sleep, since it can warm their belly and help them to rest peacefully, kind of like a hot cup of tea.

It’s filling, healthy, and quick and simple to make. You can buy cream of wheat in packaged form ready to eat as soon as you microwave it or warm it with some water, but there are also more complex ways to make it if you want a traditional version.

This dish so popular within the southern United States because it is easy to make and affordable. It’s so simple to make that many households let their kids make their own cream of wheat breakfast on the oven or in the microwave.

The basic milled grain sells for very little as well, often cheaper than cereal and other breakfast foods because of its very simple ingredients. Cream of wheat stores well for a long time and doesn’t need to be refrigerated until it is cooked up or mixed with water.

To make cream of wheat powder before you make it into a creamy substance, wheat grains have to be milled. The parts used for cream of wheat are the endosperm and the grain, called the wheat middlings. These are milled and then sifted, creating a fine substance that you can simply add to hot water to make porridge or cream of wheat from.

That would make for a bland dish, though, if you were to just use the plain cream of wheat. How to make cream of wheat that is flavourful, nourishing and comforting? Read on to find my recipe that I think you’ll love even if you didn’t grow up with this food.

Making Cream of Wheat with Milk

You don’t have to use water to make your cream of wheat. If you want it extra creamy and flavourful, you can make it with milk instead. Here is how to make cream of wheat from scratch with milk instead of water.

Follow the directions above but don’t bother to boil the milk. All you need to do is bring it to a simmer.

So, put your milk in the saucer on the stove and simmer. Add in cream of wheat and continue to let that simmer for a few minutes. Be sure to keep whisking to that you don’t end up with lumps. The key for how to make lumpy cream of wheat have no lumps is to keep on whisking and don’t let the wheat thicken prematurely.

Once the cream has thickened enough, you can add in your seasonings, garnishes and flavourings.

How to Make Cream of Wheat in the Microwave

You can make this same dish in your microwave in an even faster an easier way. It might not taste the same, but it’s still cream of wheat.

Directions:

Mix together three tablespoons of cream of wheat with 1 pinch of salt and ¾ of a cup of water or milk. Place them in a microwaveable bowl and put it in the microwave.

2. Cook for one minute. Then stir it with a whisk.
3. Cook for 1or 2 more minutes. It might be necessary to whisk it every 30 seconds to keep lumps from forming. Microwave times and heating will vary from one model to the next.

Now you know how to make cream of wheat in microwave, and you can see why this might be a preferable method.

There is less to clean up and its’s even simpler than the stovetop version. You just need to make sure it doesn’t get lumpy and that you use the right proportions of liquid with your cream of wheat.

How to Make Cream of Wheat Taste Better

If you have ever had cream of wheat that tasted bland, then you might have been turned off from it, not wanting to try it again. You probably just didn’t have a properly flavoured serving of the food, and it is in those flavourings that some cooks go wrong.

How to make the best cream of wheat? Most people agree that sweetening it with a little sugar and honey will give it the right amount of sweetness. Then, add in a garnish on top, like cinnamon or blueberries. These will give it colour and add some more depth to the flavour. Cream of wheat is already pretty comforting in its warm, creamy goodness, but it isn’t very flavourful. It needs some help to make it an interesting dish.

How to make good cream of wheat that your kids won’t turn down? Add enough sugar or other sweetener to make it a sweet dish and mix that in well so the entire dish is sweet. Then add some other flavourings so that there is more to the taste than just sweet cream of wheat.

I have shown you how to make cream of wheat with milk and with water and a few ways to make it taste even better. If you have never given this dish a try, you’re definitely ready to now.