Easy Recipe for Making Delicious Jeera Rice

Cooking is a fun activity but not for the ones who are cooking three meals everyday for a big family. It can really be cumbersome on days where you don’t feel like cooking and still want to eat something satisfactory. While making mouth watering food everyday can be difficult, there are recipes that can be cooked without much prep time or ingredients. One such recipe is the famous jeera rice.

Jeera rice is a recipe that is well-known in all Indian households. Especially the ones that have kids who just hate bland steamed rice as a staple. Mothers and homemakers are fond of the easy jeera rice recipe that gets cooked fast and is relished by everyone. The recipe for jeera rice makes it stand between plain rice and pulao. While pulao takes a lot of preparation time and steamed rice is, well, steamed rice, all mommies love to prepare jeera rice in minutes. If you’re from a location where jeera rice is not a popular recipe, here’s your chance to learn how to make jeera rice. It is an easy to make dish but has a lot of value when it comes to adding taste to any meal. It can be enjoyed with almost all Indian curries like, chole, chana masala, dum aloo, rajma, dal makhani or shahi paneer. It’s a perfect tiffin recipe for housewives as it can be made in a short time and be eaten with just raita as well. In this detailed blog, we’ll show you how to cook jeera rice.

The Goodness of Jeera Rice

The main ingredient that goes into jeera rice is, you guessed it right, jeera! Jeera or cumin seeds is a popular Indian spice that is used in almost all recipes. While there are other whole spices that go into making jeera rice, cumin is the key ingredient. It is not only added to the rice for a zesty flavour and aroma, it also has a great nutritional value.

Tiny cumin seeds might be seen as a fragrant add-on but it contains high amounts of flavonoids. Flavonoids are antioxidants that are needed for good overall health and have anti-ageing properties. Along with them, cumin also has a good amount of iron, zinc, vitamin A and calcium. Cumin is known for its benefits to gut health. It balances bile production and ensures a healthy stomach by relieving bloating, stomach gasses and indigestion. Hence, jeera rice can be good for the tummy when served with heavy sides such as rajma or dal makhani.

Methods of Making Jeera Rice

Jeera rice can be made using two different methods. Both recipes are shared with you throughout the blog. Here’s how both the methods work:

One Pot Jeera Rice

This is the easiest recipe for jeera rice. It is fast and can be cooked on new tryouts and even by bachelors. This method includes tempering the spices and cumin in hot ghee or oil. Once the spices crackle and become aromatic, basmati rice is fried with the spices to absorb the flavour in each grain. The whole fried mixture is then cooked in water for a few minutes.

Jeera rice can be cooked just like simple rice with this method. The only thing you’ll he doing here is adding a small amount of spices to enhance aroma and flavour. It gives you a fluffy, fragrant and non-sticky rice to go with your amazing main course like paneer and rajma. The reason why this method works is because the main course take time to cook. Afterwards, most of us get too tired to make parathas or pulao. This method gives you a perfect partner for your main dishes.

Restaurant Style Jeera Rice

Since it is convenient and time saving for restaurants to cook steamed basmati rice in large quantities, they don’t usually fry the rice with the spices before boiling it. So, at home you can use cooked rice that you might have made that day. The rice is then tempered with fried jeera and other spices to make jeera rice or tawa pulao with extra powdered spices.

Both these methods of preparing jeera rice are shared in this article and you can choose either for your recipe. You can serve it with any curry of your choice or serve it hot with raita.

Jeera Rice Ingredients

● Ghee/oil

● 1½ cups of basmati rice (serves 4)

● 2 tsp jeera (cumin)

● 1 bay leaf

● 2-inch cinnamon

● 4 cloves

● 4 green cardamoms

● A strand of mace (javitri) (optional)

Now that you have all the ingredients at hand, let’s start with the cooking procedure.

How to Cook Jeera Rice in One Pot/Cooker

Here’s the step-by-step method for easy jeera rice recipe in a cooker or pot:

1. Rinse 1½ cups of basmati rice in a bowl and wash it with your hand a few times. Rinse a few times so that the water is clear. Soak the rice for 20 minutes and drain.

2. Heat up 2 tbsp of ghee or oil in a cooker or pot and add the whole spices to temper them.

3. Saute all the spices on a medium flame to roast the jeera and other spices equally. The jeera shall turn dark brown so that the flavour from the jeera blends in the oil.

4. Add slices of onion if you want and saute them until they turn golden brown. You can also add deseeded green chillies if you want your rice to be a bit spicy. Remember, this step is always optional since kids don’t like onions and chillies.

5. Add drained basmati rice to the pot.

6. Mix the spices and rice together with a gentle hand and fry for 2-3 minutes. Do not stir vigorously or the rice grain will break and the rice will become sticky.

7. Measure water according to the quantity of rice. For 1½ cups of rice, add 2½ cups of water for the cooker and 3 cups of water for cooking in pot. Add ½ or ¾ tsp of salt, taste the water and add more salt according to your taste.

8. Put the lid and pressure cook on high flame for one whistle. For a pot, cover it and cook for 10 minutes or until the water is completely absorbed. Once the rice is cooked, cover the pot for 15 minutes so that the rice is cooked completely.

9. Once the pressure in the cooker gets released, open up the lid and turn the rice using a fork. You can even flip the pot or cooker on a plate.

10. Serve steaming hot with your favourite dal or curry.

Expert Tips on Making the Perfect Jeera Rice

Here are some tips to perfect the texture, flavour and aroma:

1. Choose the right type of rice for your recipe. Aged basmati rice is apt because it doesn’t turn sticky due to less starch.

2. Preparing the rice for cooking is of importance. Always rinse the rice at least thrice or till the water gets clear. It helps to remove excess starch from the rice. Soak the rice at least for 20 minutes to make the rice fluffier.

3. Fry the jeera properly for at least 2-3 minutes to bring out the whole flavour into the ghee or oil.

4. While frying the rice, always keep a lighter stirring hand. Vigourous stirring will break the rice grains.

5. Do not stop from making jeera rice if you do not have bay leaves, cinnamon, cardamom, etc. The main ingredient is jeera, you can make it with just that.

How to Make Restaurant Style Jeera Rice

Here’s how to make jeera rice like restaurants:

1. Cook the rice as you cook it everyday by boiling 1½ cups of rice. Make sure that the rice is only cooked 80 per cent because the 20 per cent of cooking will be done with the spices. Keep the rice out in a plate to cool it down.

2. Add butter or ghee in a heated pan and then add cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaf and deseeded green chili. Saute well for 1-2 minutes.

3. Lower the heat and add the jeera so that it doesn’t burn. Saute until you smell all the spices.

4. Add another tbsp of butter or ghee to the pan with freshly chopped coriander leaves. Saute the herbs and spices together to temper them.

5. Add cooled down rice to the pan and mix gently so as to not break the rice grains.

6. Serve hot with your favourite gravy.

Variations of Jeera Rice

To elevate the taste or nutritional value of jeera rice, you can try adding boiled and sauteed veggies to the rice. You don’t need to boil the vegetables if you’re cooking in one pot, just fry it with the spices and boil it with the rice. With the restaurant method however, you can boil the veggies for 10-15 minutes before sauteing them with the spices.

Jeera rice is a recipe that can be made every other day with ease. It doesn’t require a large number of ingredients and cooks faster than pulao or veg biriyani. It makes the dish a go to for weekend lunch and dinner or small family get-togethers in the house.

FAQs

How much jeera to add for each cup of rice?

There must be at least 2-3 grains of jeera in every bite, so you must add at least 1 full tbsp of jeera for every cup of rice.

Can I add potatoes to jeera rice?

Potatoes are full of starch and they will melt away in the process, making your rice mushy. Add other veggies like carrots, french beans and cauliflower, which are much crunchier.