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This South African yellow rice is a classic! This yellow rice is a traditional dish cooked with fragrant cinnamon sticks, colorful turmeric, and dotted with plump, juicy raisins. Serve it as a side dish or as the base to your favorite curried meat!
*Please note* this recipe was originally published in 2018. I’ve since redone the post but the recipe remains the same.
Yellow rice, you guys. YELLOW rice! It’s so good! If you read my latest 10 Thoughts you’ll know that I’ve been having fun going through old cookbooks and trying new recipes. One of these said cookbooks is my copy of Cook & Enjoy, a long-time favorite from South Africa. While I’ve thankfully got the English version, there are still a few things that I have to look up; case in point, I had to Google what they meant by “baby marrow”….luckily, it wasn’t anything nefarious involving a baby. It’s just zucchini. Whew!
Most of the recipes are pretty straight-forward though, like this rice!
So you might be wondering, what makes this South African yellow rice so special? Other than the fact that it’s, um, yellow? The colour is due to the teaspoon of turmeric, but the flavour of this rice is so special, thanks to the cinnamon, wee bit of sugar and turmeric. It is so fragrant, with just the right amount of sweetness and texture. Some people are weird about cooked raisins, so these are totally optional, but I personally love that little addition! My boys love them too, although they usually just end up spending their dinner picking out the raisins. Whatcha gonna do?!
How do you make South African yellow rice?
This yellow rice recipe only takes about 10 minutes to make!
It’s literally only a 1 step process:
In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine all of the ingredients and bring the mixture to a boil. Cover with a lid, reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat and allow it to sit, covered for 5 minutes before fluffing with a fork and serving!
What to serve with yellow rice?
I love to serve it with curried beef or chicken or just a simple grilled chicken breast. The first time I had it was also one of the first meals that Etienne cooked for me (and one of the last – hah – kidding)! He served it alongside another customary South African dish called bobotie; heard of it? I’m told this type of cuisine is called Cape Malay cuisine…I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m slowly learning.
Yellow rice is a great way to serve up something other than boring old white rice; plus, kids love the colour! Oh, and it’s easy. The recipe below has literally ONE step. ONE.
Try it the next time you need a change from the standard 🙂
PS – have you looked at all of the wonderful pink recipes from this past weekend, from my virtual baby shower? I was blown away by all of the support and wonderful creations from my food blogging pals! So fun!
Some other easy side dishes from the blog:
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Yellow Rice
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 2 cups rice 1x
Description
This South African yellow rice is a classic! This yellow rice is a traditional dish cooked with fragrant cinnamon sticks, colorful turmeric, and dotted with plump, juicy raisins. Serve it as a side dish or as the base to your favorite curried meat!
Ingredients
- 1 cup basmati rice
- 1 3/4 cups water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup raisins*
- 1 cinnamon stick
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Cover with the lid, reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat and allow it to sit, covered for 5 minutes before fluffing with a fork and serving!
Notes
- If you’re not a fan of cooked raisins, leave them out!
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: side dishes
- Method: stovetop
- Cuisine: south african
SWEET! Thank you for sharing this recipe! We’re hosting a dinner with our friend who is from South Africa. I know he misses the food so it will be fun to surprise him with this side dish! Pinning!
So great!!! He will definitely be familiar with it!! Let me know what he thinks! Cheers, Christina!
This is great, and would be a fabulous addition to a Thanksgiving table. After my daughter visited Colombia, she asked for coconut rice, and I served it for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. This year I might sub for this beautiful scented rice.
Thank you Mimi! We like coconut rice a lot, but it is nice to change it up sometimes with this yellow rice!