Rice Pudding: The perfect dessert
This rice pudding is amazing. I used to work at a Greek diner. Rice pudding was one of the desserts that flew off the shelf. I don’t know if this is the exact rice pudding recipe that I learned. I adapt and modify everything as I go and I rarely measure. Still, I feel confident my former boss would be proud at how I took his genius and ran with it, adapting for every foodie, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, Paleo, and “Wait! I don’t eat that!” person I could find.
Actually, I think he’d say this rice pudding tastes delicious but then he’d tell us all to eat meat and real food.
Rice pudding is a classic frugal recipe that can be dressed up or down. It’s great served warm or cool. It thickens as it cools. Use your Weck or Mason jars and pack it up for the week, and you’ll be grateful. Make a few extra–by Friday I notice my last one or two have been pilfered and I’m short on meal ideas.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup rice
- 3 cups water
- 2 cups milk, almond milk, milk & cream, or soy milk
- 1/2-2/3 c sugar or a bit of maple or honey
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 3 eggs, scrambled
- Optional: Apple pieces, raisins, dried fruit, cardamom
Directions:
- Put the rice into the water, and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook until soft. When the rice is cooked, it should look way too liquidy.
- Scramble the eggs into the milk/cream/soy/almond milk. Slowly add that into the rice mixture. Ideally, you should cool the rice mixture and mix in, then bring up to a boil, but you can temper the egg/milk mixture by adding a bit of the water in and scrambling constantly or whisk the egg-milk mixture into the rice mixture very slowly.
- Add in the spices and extracts, and bring back to a pre-boil, stirring the whole time to thicken.
When the eggs are cooked, the mixture will thicken. If you’re going vegan, skip the eggs and thicken with a spoon of tapioca flour mixed into warm water. - Top with whipped cream, cinnamon, or fruit.
Options: you can make this vegan, paleo, or super healthy. Just adjust the milk/cream you use, switch to natural sugars (I use a tiny bit of maple or local honey). And this is always Gluten Free.
Enjoy! Add your two-cents as to how you made this one your own:)