Thengai Sadam | South Indian Coconut Rice Recipe

Thengai Sadam or Coconut rice is a simple and delicious South Indian style variety rice recipe with coconut and nuts. A perfect lunchbox recipe!

When it comes to “variety rice” recipes or the kalanda sadam, as we say in Tamil, coconut rice tops the chart along with tamarind rice and lemon rice. Thengai means coconut, and sadam means rice in Tamil, hence the name coconut rice. 

Like lemon rice, it is relatively easy to make. If you have your rice cooked and coconut grated, in less than 15 minutes, you can put this recipe together. 

While M and I love coconut rice, kiddo always prefers lemon rice or tamarind rice. So I end up making those more often than this coconut rice. That’s why it took me so long to post this on the blog, and I am glad to share it today. :-)

Let’s quickly talk about the ingredients and get straight into the recipe-

Ingredients required for coconut rice-

✔  Oil to temper – I highly recommend coconut oil for this recipe. But you can use any other neutral oil or a combination of a neutral oil and coconut oil. 

✔ Tempering Ingredients – We use only mustard seeds and urad dal for coconut rice. My MIL doesn’t add chana dal or hing. But I have tried adding hing at times. I did not add any for today’s recipe, and it’s, of course, gluten-free. 

✔ Nuts – While we add peanuts to lemon rice, in our house, we add cashews to coconut rice. But I went with walnuts, pecans, and slivered almonds today. It adds a nice crunch to the coconut rice. You can add nuts of your choice, and the measure is also wholly up to you.

✔ Spice and Salt – We use green chilies to spice this dish. Adjust the chilies according to the variety, size, and as per your taste. The same goes for the salt as well.

✔ Curry leaves – If you can source curry leaves, add them; if not, you can skip. You can add up to a 1 tbsp of cilantro but not more than that. Cilantro is optional. I usually use it as a garnish and not much for coconut rice. 

✔ Coconut – The main ingredient is coconut. While fresh ones are the best, you can go with frozen grated coconut too. That’s what I did for today’s recipe. For this measure, you can use ¾ to 1 cup of loosely packed coconut. The point is more the coconut, the more the flavor. I have always used frozen or fresh coconut for this rice recipe. I haven’t used dry coconut for this recipe. 

✔ Rice – Coming to the other main ingredient, rice, I have used sona masoori raw rice, the short grain variety. You can use the grain of your choice.

Note-

As a general rule of thumb, one cup of uncooked rice yields three times the amount of cooked rice. As I mentioned in my mint rice post, that’s not the case always. It depends upon the brand and variety. Sometimes 1 cup of rice yields 4 to 5 cups also. 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, just reduce the salt and chili. You can use the same amount of coconut or reduce it to half a cup.

How to make thengai sadam | South Indian style coconut rice-

Now that we have discussed the ingredients let’s get straight into the recipe.

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 a bit. Add 1 tsp of coconut oil and the salt and mix it. Adding oil and salt at this stage keeps the rice nonsticky. 

Temper and saute the coconut-

• Heat a pan and add the coconut oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, urad dal. Let the mustard seeds splutter.
• Now add the curry leaves, green chilies, and nuts. Roast the nuts for 45 seconds to 1 minute.

• Now add the coconut.

• Reduce the heat to medium-low and roast the coconut until it turns light brown. Then turn off the heat. It generally takes 3 – 4 mins.

Mix the rice-

• Add the cooked rice mixed with salt and oil and gently mix. 
• Check for salt and, if required, adjust. If you are using cilantro, garnish it and serve with papad or dry curry of your choice. We personally like it with potato curry.

Recipe Notes-

• You can use leftover rice also. If I plan to pack this for lunch, I usually make the rice the night before to be more comfortable in the morning.
• Adjust the salt and spices according to your preference.
• Use nuts of your choice or skip it for a nut-free version.
• As hing, chana dal, and cilantro tends to overpower the coconut flavor, we skip those. That’s something I learned from my MIL and followed that. But as I mentioned in the post, I have added hing at times. 
• The spice measure works for 4 cups of cooked rice. After cooking the rice, measure the amount, and adjust the spices and salt accordingly. 

Other Coconut Recipes-

• Thengai thogayal | Coconut chutney for rice
• Coconut chutney for idli and dosa
• Thogayal thoran
• Thengai aval
• Thengai podi

PS: Follow me on Instagram or join my Facebook Group for more gardening and recipe updates. If you try this thengai sadam recipe, please don’t forget to comment and rate this recipe. If you have any questions, please leave a comment, and I will get to it asap.  Make sure to follow me on my Pinterest for more healthy and delicious ideas!

📖 Recipe

Pin Recipe Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Thengai Sadam | South Indian Coconut Rice Recipe

Thengai Sadam or Coconut rice is a simple & delicious South Indian style variety rice recipe with coconut & nuts' goodness.

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time10 minutes mins

Rice cooking time + cooling time30 minutes mins

Total Time45 minutes mins

Course: Entree

Cuisine: Tamil Nadu

Servings: 6

Calories: 217kcal

Author: Srividhya G

Equipment

• Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker
• Saucepan or kadai

Ingredients

Measurement Details: 1 cup=240ml; 1 tbsp=15ml; 1tsp=5ml;

• ▢ 1 cup raw rice I used sona masoori rice.
• ▢ 2 cups water
• ▢ 2 tsp salt or to taste
• ▢ 3 tsps coconut oil divided, coconut oil preferred, but you can use other oil as well
• ▢ 1 tsp mustard seeds
• ▢ 1 tsp urad dal
• ▢ 5 curry leaves
• ▢ 2 green chilies finely chopped
• ▢ 4 tbsps mixed nuts I used pecans, walnuts, and slivered almonds
• ▢ ¾ to 1 cup coconut grated

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 a bit. Add 1 tsp of coconut oil and the salt and mix it. Adding oil and salt at this stage keeps the rice nonsticky.

Temper and saute the coconut-

• Heat a pan and add the coconut oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, urad dal. Let the mustard seeds splutter.
• Now add the curry leaves, green chilies, and nuts. Roast the nuts for 45 seconds to 1 minute.
• Now add the coconut and reduce the heat to medium-low and roast the coconut until it turns light brown. Then turn off the heat.

Mix the rice-

• Add the cooked rice mixed with salt and oil and gently mix.
• Check for salt and, if required, adjust. If you are using cilantro, garnish it and serve with papad or dry curry of your choice. We personally like it with potato curry.

Notes

• You can use leftover rice also. If I plan to pack this for lunch, I usually make the rice the night before to be more comfortable in the morning.
• Adjust the salt and spices according to your preference.
• Use nuts of your choice or skip it for a nut-free version.
• As hing, chana dal, and cilantro tends to overpower the coconut flavor, we skip those. That's something I learned from my MIL and followed that. But as I mentioned in the post, I have added hing at times.
• The spice measure works for 4 cups of cooked rice. After cooking the rice, measure the amount, and adjust the spices and salt accordingly.

Nutrition

Calories: 217kcal | Carbohydrates: 29g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Sodium: 833mg | Potassium: 100mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 32IU | Vitamin C: 19mg | Calcium: 21mg | Iron: 1mg

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.

Tried this recipe?Mention @vidhyasvegetariankitchen or tag #vidhyasvegkitchen

For Video RecipesCheck out My YouTube Channel