Jeera rice recipe is one of the most popular rice recipes in India, which is very simple, flavorful and delicious as well.
Jeera rice is cumin seeds rice which uses a variety of spices in its preparation where cumin seeds is the most important spice used.
Jeera rice of cumin seeds rice is a kid friendly rice recipe too, as we only use mild spices to flavor the rice. The image that you see below is of jeera rice garnished with caramelized onions and coriander leaves (garnishing is not necessary though).
If you are looking for a very simple Indian style rice recipe, try this jeera rice! The recipe for jeera rice is so simple and can be adjusted according to your preferences.
For example, you can prepare a very simple jeera rice without using onions or garlic, or you can prepare a jeera rice recipe using onions, ginger and garlic which will make it more flavorful and delicious.
However, using onions, ginger and garlic is not necessary and they need to be added only if you want to add them. Other spices including whole cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, nutmeg and many other spices are used in the jeera rice recipe, where jeera or cumin seeds is the most important spice.
In this recipe for jeera rice, I am using onions and ginger garlic paste too, but if you don’t want to add them it is totally fine.
Jeera rice can be used as side dish for any Indian style meal or you can prepare jeera rice and serve it with any Indian style vegetarian curry for a side dish and also raitha (yogurt based salad). As I mentioned above, jeera rice is a kid friendly Indian rice recipe and many kids love to have jeera rice just like that or with fresh yogurt or raitha.
If you like simple and kid friendly Indian rice recipes, try this South Indian curd rice recipe which is a very simple, easy to prepare and delicious rice recipe.
I recommend using white basmati rice to prepare this jeera rice along with good quality cumin seeds and other spices like cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, star anise, cardamom pods, nutmeg strands and cloves.
Adding ghee is optional as you can also use oil or butter instead of ghee, but I highly recommend using ghee to make this jeera rice to make it more flavorful and delicious.
So here is how you can make this simple, easy and delicious jeera rice or cumin rice following this easy and simple jeer rice recipe Indian style.
Easy Jeera Rice Recipe Below
Jeera Rice Recipe - Jeera Pulao Recipe
Ingredients
- White basmati rice 2 cups
- onions 2
- minced onions 2 tablespoons optional
- ginger garlic paste 2 tablespoons
- ghee 4 tablespoons
- salt as needed
- water 4.5 cups
- coriander leaves cilantro leaves a few for garnishing
- cumin seeds 2 teaspoons
- cardamom powder 2 pods
- cloves 2
- bay leaves 2
- cinnamon sticks 2 small
- nutmeg strands 2
- star anise 1
Instructions
- Wash and peel the onions, slice the onions long and thinly, keep aside.
- Wash the rice very well and soak in water for about 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes of soaking in water, rinse the rice again, drain off the water and keep aside separately in a bowl.
- In a pan, heat 2 tablespoons of ghee, add salt and saute the chopped onions until the onions are golden brown in color.
- Take about half of the sauteed golden brown onions and keep aside.
- Saute the remaining onions until the onions are caramelized, which we will use later for garnishing the jeera rice.
- Heat one tablespoon of ghee is a large pan, and lightly fry the cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, cloves, star anise and cardamom pods.
- Add the cumin seeds to the pan and lightly fry until the cumin seeds are lightly browned.
- Add the minced onions and lightly fry.
- Add the ginger garlic paste and mix everything well, saute for another 1 minute.
- Add the sauteed golden browned onions to the pan and mix everything well.
- Add the rice to the pan, add enough salt and also the remaining one spoon of ghee and mix everything well.
- Keep in low to medium heat and stir fry the rice for about 1 to 2 minutes until the rice is well coated with the ghee and spices.
- Add the water, stir well (check the salt now) and bring the mixture to a boil by keeping the heat on high.
- When the mixture starts boiling, stir well and close the pan with lid.
- Cook in very low heat for about 10 minutes or a couple of minutes more until the rice is cooked and water is all absorbed.
- After 10 minutes of cooking, open the pan and see if the rice is completely cooked, if not you may cook for a couple of minutes more as I mentioned above until the water is all absorbed. If the rice is completely cooked and if there is any more water left, keep the pan open and cook for a couple of minutes more until the water is all evaporated.
- Keep the pan away from heat and keep it closed for another 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, you can gently mix in the rice using a good quality spatula which will help with rice not sticking to each other. If you are not planning to serve the rice soon, allow it to cool down for few more minutes and then gently stir once more.
- Finally, add the caramelized onions to the pan, you may mix this caramelized onions with the jeera rice, which will enhance the flavor of the rice, or you can add this as a topping for garnishing, do as you please!
- Add the cilantro leaves (coriander leaves) too to the top of the rice for garnishing.
- Serve the jeera rice with raitha and any vegetarian curry or Indian dal fry as you wish.
Notes
Hope you found this post on jeera rice recipe or simple jeera pulao recipe helpful in making easy and yummy jeera rice or cumin rice for lunch or dinner!
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