Best Rice Pudding
Cold, crisp autumn weather calls for a bowl of warm rice pudding specially topped with some spices like cinnamon and cardamom. It’s so appropriate for fall weather.
It’s creamy and mildly sweet and top it with some nuts or fresh fruit. It’s simple and honestly needs very basic few ingredients. The recipe that I am sharing today is not the Indian style Kheer but more like a western take on rice pudding.
It reminds me of the best rice pudding I have ever had in New York.
It’s almost same but this one has thicker consistency unlike kheer. Rice pudding is rice cooked in sweetened milk. The cooking process releases the starch from the rice and thus making it thick as we cook along.
There are few different ways it can be prepared. I cook the rice in water and then add milk, sugar and let it thicken up.
Let’s look at the ingredients and substitutions
Rice – I have used Arborio rice. You can use any type of long grain or short grain white rice for this recipe. Arborio is Italian rice used for risotto and has more starch to it and thus helps in making a thicker rice pudding. Use basmati rice or jasmine rice.
Milk– I used whole milk in the house, but you can really use any milk in this recipe. Vegans can use coconut milk. The milk will add to the creaminess.
Sugar – I have used some coconut sugar and some white sugar. I love using brown sugar for puddings. Jaggery is also another good alternative.
Flavoring– I used cardamom and cinnamon powder. There are lot of things can be used to flavor it like nutmeg, vanilla beans or extract, almond extract or saffron.
Dried fruits and nuts – I added some almonds. You can add any nuts, raisins or completely skip it.
Fresh Fruits/compote – I wanted to use blueberries for two reasons – one for the flavor and secondly for that perfect purple color.
Recipe for the compote can be found on this link – Blueberry compote
You can use any other fruits. I am sharing two ways you can serve it check out the two pictures.
Hope you like it.
Best Rice Pudding with Blueberries
Ingredients
- ½ cup rice
- 1 tsp ghee
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup sugar white or brown sugar
- 1 tsp cardamom powder
- ¼ tsp cinnamon powder
- ¼ cup Dry fruits optional
- Fresh Fruits optional
Instructions
- Rinse the rice under running water and then soak it for 10 minutes. Drain the rice after soaking.
- In a medium sauce pan or pot, take ghee and add drained rice and toast it for 2 minutes.
- Then add it to a pot along with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until rice is tender.
- Once all the water has evaporated and rice looks cooked.
- Add in the milk and sugar.
- Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
- Do not leave it unattended. Milk can bubble over.
- Lower the heat, let it simmer, stirring frequently for 20-30 minutes, or until the pudding looks thickened; milk is absorbed, and rice is cooked.
- Add cardamom powder, nutmeg powder, or cinnamon powder and the nuts. Reserve some to garnish.
- Let it cool to room temperature.
- Transfer it to a container, if not serving it right away. It can be kept in the fridge for few days. Serve it cold or at room temperature.
- Mix in the blueberry compote or just leave it on side for people to serve themselves. You can use any other fruits too.
Notes
- I love rice pudding a little bit warm. It’s personal preference.
- Serve it cold or room temperature.
- If you use long grain rice, it might result slightly different in texture. But still delicious.
- Do not mix fruits to hot pudding mixture, add it once it has cooled down a bit.
- I have shared the blueberry compote recipe link.
- If you use brown sugar or jaggery, it will have nice caramel color to it. I used both white and coconut sugar.
XOXO, Devangi