Simple and delicious South Indian style mint rice recipe perfect for a quick lunch or dinner. A perfect dish to pack for lunch as well!
Who doesn’t like quick lunch recipes and breakfast recipes? We all do. Here is one such delicious lunch recipe loaded with mint flavors, popularly known as pudina rice or pudina sadam in Tamil. Pudina means mint in most Indian languages, and we use it a lot for chutneys, rasam, pulaos, and biryanis and variety rice dishes like this.
PS – If you are looking for quick breakfast recipes, check our my poha recipe or other smoothies or the staple South Indian staple idli-dosa.
In Tamil cuisine, variety rice dishes or as we say kalanda sadam/saadam is quite popular and adding this mint rice to my “variety rice” collection.
I learned this recipe from my friend Sreelatha, and this is my go-to lunch box recipe. I even shared the making of this rice on my Instagram highlights a couple of years ago. But finally, here I am in the blog, updating the pictures and adding the recipe card. :-) Yes, I posted this recipe back in 2013.
Now let’s talk about the ingredients-
✔ Mint – I love the flavor of mint, and I have used one cup of tightly packed mint leaves for this recipe. You can reduce the amount to half a cup, but I highly recommend using 1 cup.
✔ Rice – Coming to the other main ingredient rice, I have used raw rice, the sona masoori variety. You can use brown rice, quinoa, or basmati rice even. As a general rule of thumb, one cup of uncooked rice yields triple the amount when cooked. But that’s not the case always. The rice variety that I used for this recipe yielded 4 cups of cooked rice, and I have used the entire 4 cups of cooked rice for this recipe.
If you are using 3 cups, I will reduce the salt. You can use the same amount of mint leaves for intense flavor or reduce it a little.
✔ Onion – We need one big onion for this recipe. I used a similar one like below which was approx 270 grams. We will be using half the amount for making the mint paste and the other half for sauteing.
✔ Green chilies – I used two green chilies, and they added sufficient spice for 4 cups of rice. Depending upon the variety and your preference, you can adjust the green chilies.
✔ Tempering ingredients – We need some basic tempering spices like oil, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds. If you can source curry leaves, definitely add. It intensifies the flavor, but if you can’t source it, skip the curry leaves.
✔ Potato – Potatoes are optional, but if you want to add additional vegetables, you can add boiled carrots, chopped or mashed potatoes. You can even add roasted paneer. When I shared this recipe on my IG, that’s what I did.
As you can see, you can customize this recipe according to your choice. Now without any further ado, let me share the recipe.
Pudina rice recipe with detailed step-wise pictures-
Cook the rice –
- Cook the rice in your preferred way. I cooked the rice in a pressure cooker by adding 2 cups of water. Spread the rice on a plate and let it cool completely. You can use leftover rice also. If I plan to pack this for lunch, I usually make the rice the night before so it will be more comfortable in the morning.
Prepare the pudina paste-
- Grind the two green chilies, half of the onion, and mint leaves by adding 3 to 4 tbsps of water. Rinse the mixer jar with remaining water and set it aside.
Make the pudina rice-
- Heat the kadai and add oil.
- When the oil is hot, add mustard seeds, jeera, and asafoetida.
- When the mustard seeds splutter, add the onion and curry leaves. Saute until the onions are soft.
- When the onions are soft, add the mint paste and the water used to rinse the mixer jar. Add the salt.
- Mix well.
- Cook well until all the water gets absorbed, and mint leaves paste thicken like below. We need to cook until the raw smell completely goes off.
- Reduce the heat to low and add the cooked and cooled down rice and mix gently but thoroughly.
- If using potatoes, mash them and add them to the rice. Turn off the heat.
Serve it with raita of your choice.
Recipe Notes-
- Adjust the salt and spices according to your preference.
- More mint leaves add intense flavor but adjust according to your taste preference. I would recommend a minimum of ½ cup.
- When cooking rice, you can add cloves, bay leaf, and one cardamom for more flavor.
Other lunch-box special recipes-
Mint Rice | Pudina Rice | Pudina Sadam
Equipment
- Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker
- wok or kadai
Ingredients
Measurement Details: 1 cup=240ml; 1tbsp=15ml;1tsp=5ml;
- 1 cup mint leaves, tightly packed. Stems removed and cleaned
- 1 onion chopped and divided. Approx, 270 grams We will be using one half for the pudina paste and the other half while sauteing.
- 2 green chilies or to taste
- 2.25 tsps salt or to taste
- 2 tsps oil
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 2 tsps cumin seeds
- ⅛ tsp asafoetida skip for a gluten-free version
- 5 curry leaves
- 1 cup raw rice I used sona masoori rice. But you can use basmati as well
- 2.5 cups water divided. 2 cups to cook the rice and ½ cup for preparing the pudina paste
- 2 boiled potatoes peeled and mashed (optional)
Instructions
Cook the rice -
- Cook the rice in your preferred way. I cooked the rice in a pressure cooker by adding 2 cups of water. Spread the rice on a plate and let it cool completely. You can use leftover rice also. If I plan to pack this for lunch, I usually make the rice the night before so it will be more comfortable in the morning.
Prepare the pudina paste-
- Grind the two green chilies, half of the onion, and mint leaves by adding 3 to 4 tbsps of water. Rinse the mixer jar with remaining water and set it aside.
Make the pudina rice-
- Heat the kadai and add oil.
- When the oil is hot, add mustard seeds, jeera, and asafoetida.
- When the mustard seeds splutter, add the onion and curry leaves. Saute until the onions are soft.
- When the onions are soft, add the mint paste and the water used to rinse the mixer jar.
- Add the salt and mix well.
- Cook well until all the water gets absorbed, and mint leaves paste thicken like below. We need to cook until the raw smell completely goes off.
- Reduce the heat to low and add the cooked and cooled down rice and mix gently but thoroughly.
- If using potatoes, mash them and add them to the rice. Turn off the heat.
- Serve it with raita of your choice.
Notes
- Adjust the salt and spices according to your preference.
- More mint leaves add intense flavor but adjust according to your taste preference. I would recommend a minimum of ½ cup.
- When cooking rice, you can add cloves, bay leaf, and one cardamom for more flavor.
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It varies depending upon the product types or brands.
Update Notes: This recipe was originally posted in 2013 but now updated with new pics, and recipe cards.
looks so flavourful
Thanks Veena and welcome here.
Flavorsome rice Sri…. live the flavor of mint and spices in there…. yummmm…Congrats on your 50th post…. :) :)
Thanks chitra..