Sambar rice recipe is a simple, easy and popular South Indian dish. You can enjoy sambar rice for a simple and yummy vegetarian/vegan lunch or dinner.
While most popular and traditional sambar rice is quite mushy (and very yummy) in texture, this is a recipe for dry sambar rice recipe which you can easily make in one pot very quickly.
In this super easy recipe for sambar rice, I have just used fresh tomatoes for vegetables, to make the sambar rice along with fresh mint leaves.
You can adjust the recipe and use vegetables of your choice, which will cook easily, as we cook the vegetables along with the rice. You can also replace mint leaves with fresh coriander leaves (cilantro leaves) which will be great for sambar rice.
The most important ingredient for this easy sambar rice recipe is sambar powder.
The quality of sambar powder you use will reflect in the taste and flavor of the finished sambar rice, so make sure to use the best sambar powder to make the sambar rice, whether you use homemade sambar powder or sambar powder from store.
You can buy sambar powder online here.
This is not an authentic sambar rice recipe, but this is a very simple, yummy and easy one pot recipe for sambar rice which you follow easily.
Since I am using fresh tomatoes for vegetables in this sambar rice recipe, I skipped the tamarind extract as the fresh tomatoes are sour enough to flavor the recipe.
If you are not using this many number of tomatoes as called in the recipe (if you are replacing the tomatoes with other vegetables) you can add tamarind extract also to the water used for cooking the rice (one small lemon sized tamarind pulp dissolved in water and filtered will be enough).
Adding shallots to the sambar rice will add much flavor to the rice without much efforts.
So here is how you can make this easy one pot sambar rice following this easy and simple sambar rice recipe.
Easy Sambar Rice Recipe Below
Easy Sambar Rice Recipe
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups white basmati rice
- 4 fresh tomatoes
- 1 bunch fresh mint leaves use cilantro instead if you wish
- 2 tablespoons sambar powder
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- ½ teaspoon red chili powder
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- 4 dry red chilies broken
- 1 string curry leaves
- 5 shallots
- salt as needed
- 3.5 cups water
Instructions
- Wash the mint leaves and chop them finely. Keep a few leaves separately for garnishing the rice.
- Peel the shallots and slice them.
- Chop the tomatoes in medium sized pieces and keep aside.
- Wash the rice, drain the water and keep aside separately.
- Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds.
- When the mustard seeds splutter, add the broken dried red chilies and curry leaves, fry for a few seconds.
- Add the chopped shallots and lightly fry for a few seconds so the shallots starts to turn brown.
- Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan and saute for about 5 minutes or until the tomatoes are lightly cooked.
- Add the rice to the pan and saute for about a minute.
- Add the salt and stir well.
- Add the chopped mint leaves (apart from mint leaves kept for garnishinto the rice, mix everything well and saute for another 1 more minute.
- Add the sambar powder, turmeric powder and red chili powder to thepan and mix all contents gently. Lightly stir fry the contents for another 1 more minutes.
- Add the water, mix everything well and bring the water to a boil.
- Once the water starts boiling, close the pan with the lid and cook in low heat for 10 to 12 minutes.
- After 12 minutes, remove the lid and see if the rice is cooked and if the water is all absorbed.
- If there is very little water remaining, keep the pan opened and cook in medium heat for another 1 to 2 minutes or until the water is all evaporated. Just make sure you keep watching at this point to avoid the rice burning at the bottom of the pan.
- Switch off the stove and keep the pan away from heat.
- Garnish the sambar rice fresh mint leaves and this easy one pot sambar rice is ready to be served. Enjoy the sambar rice with fresh yogurt, raitha, any chutneys or any vegetarian curry of your choice!
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