Easy Slow Cooker Rice Pudding
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups Mahatma® White Rice
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed and divided
- 5 cups 3.25% whole milk
- 3/4 cups organic cane sugar
- Pinch salt
- 1 tbsp freshly grated orange zest
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp fresh nutmeg, grated
Instructions
Prepared in the slow cooker, this velvety pudding is a must try.
Step 1
Rub inner bowl of slow cooker with half the butter. Add milk, sugar and salt; stir until combined. Stir in rice and dot with remaining butter.
Step 2
Cover slow cooker with lid and cook on HIGH for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until rice is very tender and mixture is thick and creamy.
Step 3
Stir in orange zest and vanilla. Serve warm, or cool in refrigerator until well chilled and serve cold.
Step 4
Sprinkle with nutmeg before serving.
Recipe Tips
Stir in 1/2 cup raisins in the last 30 minutes of cooking if desired.
Alternatively, cook pudding on LOW in slow cooker for 5 to 6 hours.
How to Zest an Orange
Oftentimes many recipes call for orange zest. What does that mean and how does one zest an orange? Let’s break it down.
The zest of citrus fruit can be found on the outside layer of the skin. You will only need a small amount of zest to go a long way. Avoid the white part of the peel since it is too bitter to use.
To zest an orange you can use the fine side of a grater. It is the most common and effortless way to do so. Depending on the recipe it can call for a different sized zest. If this is the case, use the thicker side of the grater. With this particular Orange Cauliflower Rice Bowl recipe, the size of the zest doesn’t really matter.
You can never have enough zest! If you have grated more than your recipe calls for, no problem. It is possible to freeze your zested oranges for later use. The first step is to spread your zest in a thin layer on a cookie sheet and freeze, then split up the zest and store in a ziplock bag. Excess zest can last up to a month in the freezer.
You can also create zest with other citrus fruits. Lemons and limes are welcome substitutes, as you can see in this tasty Coconut and Almond Rice Tart recipe or this Moroccan Rice and Chicken Salad.
Tricks to Make Perfect Rice Pudding
Mahatma® Rice has over a dozen rice pudding recipes to share with you. From Strawberry Churro Pudding to Coffee Mousse Rice Pudding we can guarantee it will be delicious each and every time. Here are just a few tricks to make sure that happens:
First off, make sure you soak the rice at least 20 minutes before cooking. If you seem to be having bad luck with runny rice pudding, it can be thickened by adding more cooked rice, by boiling it down to reduce the liquid or by adding a thickener such as flour. Keep in mind that as it cools it will thicken.
If your rice pudding is hard, make sure that you are cooking the rice properly before adding it to the pudding mixture. If it is overcooked it will be hard and crunchy and if it is undercooked it will be mushy.
For more incredible tips on how to make the best rice pudding check out our blog post here.
