This rice pudding features cardamom, an aromatic spice that is used most often in Indian cooking. This dessert is perfect for when you want something sweet and easy.
Cardamom-Raisin Rice Pudding
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 mins
- Yield: 4 to 6 (makes about 6 cups) 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup long- or short-grain brown rice
- 2 cups unsweetened nondairy milk
- 3 ounces pitted dates (5 to 6 Medjool or 10 to 12 Deglet Noor), chopped
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or seeds from 1 vanilla bean)
- ½ cup brown or golden raisins
- 1 ounce raw, unsalted almonds, chopped (about ¼ cup; optional)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- Chopped or sliced raw, unsalted almonds for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Bring the water and rice to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat, uncovered. Reduce the heat to low, then cover and simmer for 45 minutes for long-grain rice or 50 minutes for short-grain rice. Remove the pan from the heat and let stand for 10 minutes with the lid still on.
- Place the nondairy milk, dates, and vanilla into a blender, and set aside (so the dates can soften) while the rice is cooking.
- When the rice is done, add the raisins, almonds, cinnamon, and cardamom to the pan.
- Blend the milk, dates, and vanilla until smooth, and stir this mixture into the pan.
- Cook on medium-low for 10 to 15 minutes to allow the flavors to blend, stirring occasionally to keep the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add more milk as needed (the pudding will thicken as it cooks). Serve warm or cold in small dessert dishes. Garnish with chopped or sliced almonds if desired.
Notes
Any kind of non-dairy milk will work. I like to use soy milk since it is richer and creamier than rice or almond.
Make sure you get all the pits out of your dates, as they are quite hard if bitten down on. Add fewer dates if you want the pudding to be less sweet.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 65 mins
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ⅙ recipe, 1 cup
- Calories: 250
- Sugar: 17.7g
- Sodium: 17mg
- Fat: 4.9g
- Saturated Fat: 0.6g
- Carbohydrates: 47.3g
- Fiber: 6.2g
- Protein: 6.9g
- Cholesterol: 0
I have a bunch of leftover brown jasmine rice in the fridge, and DH asked me to make rice pudding this morning. Guess what we're having tomorrow! With the rice already cooked, it should come together in about 10-15 minutes 🙂
Great idea...this is a really quick recipe once the rice is cooked! 🙂
Is it difficult to find Cardamom?
Hi Cheryl, no, not at all. Most stores will carry it. You can get pods, seeds or ground. Get the ground, unless you have a means to grind the seeds yourself and want to do that 🙂
I should try this - I always do rice pudding by baking uncooked rice mixed with non-dairy milk, raisins and spices. It tastes great and it's easy as could be, but it takes like two hours to cook!
Yum. now I want rice pudding!
Hi Cathy, do you soak your rice overnight?
PaulaG (from NSW, Australia)
No, I never soak rice. 🙂
Hi Cathy, I've made this recipe twice now, my husband loves it, I doubled the ingredients and put halve in the freezer, it freezes well.
Paula
Love this recipe! It is a family favorite.
Just made it for my breakfast tomorrow. .. i taste it and its really yummy (with less dates). Thanks.
I'm definitely making this over the weekend.
Yay! This recipe is a favorite of mine. I hope you enjoy it. 😉
Mmm. I love the wonderful array of spices in this recipe. I'm going to have to add cardamom to my list of favorites. Great job on the recipe!
Thanks Miles! 😉
This recipe is so delicious! Making it again!
I thought this was super yummy. I ended up adding an additional 2 cups of water so that it would be extra creamy. Thank you so much for sharing. I love your recipes!!
This recipe is delicious! Thanks so much for sharing in your cookbook and online.
Any version for making in the instant pot ?
Hi Chris, Rice takes so long to cook and I'm not sure I'd want to cook the nondairy milk for that long (cooking fat, esp at that high of a temp isn't the best for health). So I'd say cook the rice on its own in the IP, then stir in the other ingredients and put the IP on for another minute or two to let the flavors come together.
Is there a way to sub date syrup or date paste for the pitted dates??? If so, how much would you use?
According to the Date Lady (see this page for a substitution chart), it's 1 tablespoon date syrup for each medjool date. If you're using delet noor (or a type of similar smaller size), then it would be 1.5 teaspoons per date. 🙂