This Indian Yellow Rice is the perfect accompaniment to serve alongside your favourite Indian curry, tandoori chicken or lamb, dahl or even just with a raita. Its fragrant, quick and easy and most of all delicious. Take your curry night up a notch with this warming yellow rice!
This Indian rice is by all means not authentic but I have to say: ‘just as darn good’
It starts off by sautéing diced onion slowly until soft and sweet, then a handful of warming spices are toasted in the pan before adding basmati rice and allowing it to toast and coat all those beautiful rice grains. Chicken stock (or vegetable stock if preferred) is then added for depth of flavour (rather than water) then simmered to perfection.
The outcome? Delicious gorgeous yellow rice that is aromatic and flavourful!
How to make yellow rice
Making this rice is very straight forward and well worth the extra effort, especially if you have someone you want to impress. I tend to make this majority of the time now as it really doesn’t take that much longer than cooking regular basmati rice and the flavour is more superior. A diced onion, a few spices, rice and stock is all that you need.
Step-by-step
What to serve with Indian rice
Well, you guessed it!! Curry of course! ha ha ha. But curry is not the only thing you can serve with this Indian Yellow Rice. Below are some options you may also like to serve or use this rice with or for:
- CURRIES: Any Indian style curry works with this rice. Butter chicken, lamb korma, beef vindaloo, Goan fish curry just to name a few.
- TANDOORI: The rice pairs beautifully with tender grilled or baked tandoori chicken (whole or pieces), fish, or my favourite, Tandoori lamb cutlets! It’s lip smacking good.
- WRAPS: If you have any leftover rice or make it especially for this reason, this rice works great in wraps or flatbreads of any kind along with some protein of choice (tandoori chicken is perfect for this), your choice of salad (think tomato, red onion, cucumber, raita, lettuce), along with some of the yellow rice. Roll up and your done! Perfect for lunch on the run or to take to work or school.
- PIZZA: Yep, you heard me. I love making a good tandoori or butter chicken pizza and adding a thin layer of this yellow rice to the base or top before baking. If in doubt, I urge you to try it! Trust me, it’s good.
- DAHL: Serve dahl spooned over a bowl of yellow rice to enhance the flavours and colour of your dahl.
- ON ITS OWN: This rice is so delicious it can be served as a bowl of comfort food. I like to top with a little Indian Mint Chutney , raita or just a dollop of Greek natural yoghurt. To take it up a notch, add some sliced red onion, cucumber and red chilli and a handful of fresh coriander. Mmmmm yum!
❄️ Storage
FRIDGE:
Any leftover yellow rice can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Reheat in the microwave before serving until piping hot.
FREEZE:
The rice freezes well. Allow the rice to fully cool (make sure to do this as quickly as possible) then divide into indvidual serving size portions or larger portions (depending on your needs) and spoon into zip-lock freezer safe bags. (I like to flatten the rice out in the bags and freeze them flat so they take up less room in the freezer). Label, date and freeze for up to 2-3 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight before reheating in the microwave until piping hot.
Indian Yellow Rice
Equipment
- Saucepan with a tight fitting lid
Ingredients
- 20g unsalted butter or ghee (you could also use a neutral oil)
- 1 small onion, diced
- Good pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- ½ teaspoon cracked black pepper
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1-2 fresh or dried bay leaf (I used 3 tiny ones)
- 4 cardamom pods
- 4 cloves
- 1 cup basmati rice (rinsed under cold water till water runs mostly clear)
- 1 ½ cups prepared chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
Instructions
- Melt butter or ghee in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and a good pinch of salt, and cook, stirring often, for 6-7 minutes until softened.
- Add cumin seeds, turmeric, pepper, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, cardamom pods and cloves, and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add the basmati rice, stir for a further 1 minute. Pour in stock and bring to the boil.
- Once boiling, using a metal spoon, stir briefly to loosen any rice from the base of saucepan, cover with a tight fitting lid, reduce heat to very low (I use a simmer mat as well) and cook for 15 minutes, without removing the lid. *DON'T BE TEMPTED TO CHECK IT. DO NOT UNCOVER!
- Remove saucepan from the heat and set aside for at least 10 minutes to finish steaming. DO NOT OPEN LID. Fluff with a fork before serving. If you wish, you may remove the whole spices. They generally come to the surface so this is easy to do. Garnish with coriander if desired and serve with your favourite curry. Enjoy 🙂
Notes
- COOKS NOTES:
Oven Temps: Oven temperatures are for conventional, if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C.
Measurements: We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon = 5 ml, 1 tablespoon = 20 ml & 1 cup = 250 ml.
Herbs: All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed.
Vegetables: All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified.
Eggs: We use extra-large size and eggs are 55-60 g each, unless specified. - TO INCREASE QUANTITY
This amount is enough to feed 4 persons with around 3/4 cup per serve. 1 cup raw rice = 3 cups cooked rice by rule of thumb. (except brown rice)
If you want to increase the amount per serve, have extra guests or maybe you want leftovers to freeze etc you can increase the rice to 2 cups and the stock to 2 3/4 cups.You can leave the the remaining ingredients as per the recipe or up increase them slightly if you wish. But I don’t find this necessary. It still packs loads of flavour. Maybe use 1 large onion instead. - STORAGE
Any leftover rice will keep for 2-3 days in the refrigerator or you can freeze for longer storage. Follow the directions in the post above. - TO MAKE VEGETARIAN OR VEGAN
* Omit the butter or ghee and use a neutral oil instead such as rice bran, canola or avocado etc.
* Replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock
You may also enjoy
- Indian Spiced Yoghurt Chicken Breasts (Air Fryer) – the perfect meal with this rice
- Easy Indian Vegetable Samosas
- The Easiest Garlic Naan Bread Ever
- Easy Kerala Fish Curry
- Indian Mint Chutney (Pudina Chutney)
- Butter Chicken
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