Curried rice with vegetables

This curried rice is an Indian-style flavored basmati rice recipe loaded with vegetables. It's a great side dish to be served with Indian curries, and dals, or enjoyed with a simple salad or raita. It gets ready in just 35 minutes.

Curried rice is one of the most commonly cooked dishes in Indian kitchens on busy days. This one-pot dish gets ready quickly and is loved by almost everyone.

It's also one of the first few dishes that most Indians learn to make and survive on in their initial days of college and job.

This is enough to tell how easy it's to make this curried rice with vegetables recipe.

It gets ready in just 35 minutes.

What's needed to make curried rice?

To make Indian curried rice, you will need the following ingredients:

Ingredient notes and substitute suggestions

• Rice: Basmati rice is the best for making curried rice but you can use other varieties of rice too with long or medium-sized grains. Don't use a sticky variety of rice.
• Mixed vegetables: Generally cauliflower, green peas, carrot, and green beans are used in curried rice. You can also add other ingredients like broccoli, bell pepper, or mushrooms. Even soya chunks taste great in this dish. Just soak them in hot water for a few minutes before using in the recipe.
• Red onion: Red onion tastes the best in Indian recipes but you can use other varieties too.
• Fresh cilantro: If you don't like cilantro, skip it but don't replace it with parsley in Indian recipes. Parsley doesn't go well with Indian flavors.
• Turmeric powder: You may skip turmeric if you don't want to add yellow color to your dish.
• Coriander powder: It's the powdered form of dried coriander seeds and is used as a spice to flavor Indian dishes.
• Red chili powder: If you don't like very spicy food, either skip it or use a milder variety like Kashmiri red chili powder.
• Garam masala: It's a flavorful blend of Indian spices and you can easily find it in any South Asian grocery store.
• Cooking oil: Use any neutral-flavored cooking oil. Non-vegans may also use ghee to make curried rice.
• Cumin seeds: Instead of cumin seeds you can also use black mustard seeds. Both can be used too. I have used only two whole spices in this dish, you can also use other whole spices like black peppercorns, cloves, star anise, cinnamon stick, etc to flavor curried rice.

How to make (step by step instructions)?

Step 1: Heat oil in a cooking pot. Add cumin seeds and bay leaf. Saute for a few seconds i.e. until the spices become fragrant.

Step 2: Add chopped onion. Cook until the onion turns translucent.

Step 3: Add minced garlic and saute for a few seconds i.e. until the raw smell of garlic goes away.

Step 4: Add chopped vegetables, ginger, and green chilies. Cook for 4-5 minutes.

Step 5: Add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, ground black pepper, and salt.

Step 6: Saute for a minute.

Step 7: Add rinsed rice.

Step 8: Saute rice with spices and vegetables for around 2 minutes.

Step 9: Add water.

Step 10: Cover the pot and cook for around 20 minutes or until the rice is cooked and then switch off the stove.

Step 11: Don't remove the lid for around 5 minutes. After removing the lid, add chopped cilantro.

Step 12: Fluff rice with a fork.

Your flavorful curried rice with vegetables is ready to be enjoyed!

How to serve curried rice?

Curried rice is a very flavorful and filling dish that's generally enjoyed with a simple Indian side dish mostly raita like onion raita, cucumber raita, potato raita, beetroot raita, or just plain yogurt.

If you are a vegan and can't have yogurt serve it with a refreshing chutney like mint chutney, tomato chutney, or raw mango chutney.

It can also be paired with a refreshing Indian salad like kachumber salad or masala pyaz.

However, if you want to serve it with a curry or dal it can be done too. You can pick some of the following dishes to serve with this flavored basmati rice:

1. Chana dal
2. Brown lentil curry
3. Moong dal
4. Lobia curry
5. Vegetable curry
6. Mixed beans curry
7. Indian potato curry
8. Soya chunks curry
9. Urad chana dal
10. Black chickpea curry

Storing and reheating tips

To store, transfer the leftover curried rice to an airtight container and refrigerate. It will be fine for 3-4 days.

To reheat, transfer it to a pan, add a splash of water, cover the pan with a tight lid, and put it on the stove. Reheat on a low flame for a few minutes, keep checking and stirring after every 2-3 minutes, and if needed some more water.

You can also microwave it for a few minutes to reheat. If reheating in the microwave, take out the container once or twice in between, stir, and put it back to ensure that the rice gets evenly heated.

Recipe tips and tricks

• I have used long-grain Indian basmati rice to make curried rice and that's the best choice for this recipe. You can also use jasmine rice or any other not very starchy variety of rice with medium or long grains. Please note that the water-rice ratio and time to cook rice will change in that case.
• If you don't have all the vegetables that I have used, you can skip some of them. 
• You can also use other vegetables like broccoli, bell peppers, or mushrooms in this dish. Even soya chunks taste great in curry rice.
• Though not a traditional way of cooking rice in India, you can use vegetable stock instead of water to cook curried rice.
• You can also add nuts and raisins to it.
• Generally, curried rice is cooked in ghee which makes this rice dish taste even better. But you can also use olive oil or any other oil of your choice to make it, preferably a neutral-flavored oil.

More flavorful Indian rice recipes

If you enjoyed curried rice and want to try more Indian rice recipes in your kitchen then don't miss to check out the following links:

1. Chickpea rice
2. Tomato rice
3. Cabbage rice
4. Beetroot rice
5. Vegetable rice
6. Corn rice
7. Paneer fried rice
8. Lemon rice
9. Curd rice
10. Jeera rice