Kheer Recipe - Swasthi's Recipes (2024)

Kheer, especially Rice Kheer is everyone’s favorite Indian dessert! Simply delicious, comforting, creamy and rich, this Rice Kheer makes for a perfect dessert anytime you crave for something sweet. This North Indian Rice Pudding is easy to make & needs only a handful of basic ingredients. In this post I show you How to Make Rice Kheer on the stovetop in a pot and in the instant pot, with my easy step by step photo guide.

About Kheer

Kheer is a popular dessert from the Indian sub-continent, made primarily with rice, milk and sugar. The word “Kheer” is derived from the Sanskrit word “Skheer” meaning milk. So milk being the main ingredient in a kheer recipe, many variations can be made by using vermicelli, sago (tapioca pearls), lentils or vegetables like pumpkin and carrots.

What is Rice Kheer?

Rice Kheer is a traditional North Indian rice pudding made with basmati rice, sugar, full fat milk and cardamoms. Sometimes it is also flavored and spiced with clove, saffron, nutmeg, kewra or rose water.

This Rice Kheer is made across India and the popular variations of include the South Indian Rice Payasam & Bengali Payesh. The South Indian version uses short grain rice, ghee and jaggery, While the Bengali Payesh is made with Gobindobhog rice & date palm jaggery.

Kheer is a quintessential Indian dessert made for festivals and celebrations. But you really don’t need an excuse to make this! It can be eaten as a breakfast, after meal dessert or just when the mood strikes for something sweet!

Rice kheer is garnished with nuts and raisins. Various nuts like cashews, almonds and pistachios can be used. Apart from enhancing the nutrition profile of the dish, nuts also make for a delicious and crunchy toppings.

Staying true to the authentic version, I have not used any condensed milk, evaporated milk, milk powder or khoya in the recipe I have shared in this post. But there are also quick versions of rice kheer using them which are really handy when you are in a rush. Do check the faq section below to know more on that.

Here are some basic questions answered to get you started with making kheer.

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Ingredients

Which Rice is best for Kheer?

Basmati rice is widely used in North Indian cuisine so you will find a lot of people use basmati rice for making kheer as it imparts a fragrant and delicious aroma. However in different regions of India, different kinds of rice is used which is grown locally.

So feel free to use any normal starchy rice if you do not have basmati rice. But make sure you use starchy rice, else your kheer won’t thicken even after cooking for long.

Which Milk is best for Rice Kheer?

Use full fat (whole milk) to make the authentic, delicious and creamy version of kheer. If you are a vegan you may use coconut or almond milk as well.

Ratio of Rice:Milk

Traditionally made Kheer & Payasam has a predefined rice:milk ratio and this is what most people follow. ¼ cup rice for every 4 cups (1 liter) full fat milk. Remember this is a special dish so it does require so much milk.

How to Make Kheer (Stepwise photos)

1. To make rice kheer, you will need the following:

• 4 cups or 1 liter of full fat milk
• 4 to 6 tablespoons organic sugar (adjust to taste)
• ¼ to ½ teaspoon cardamom powder (2 to 3 cardamom pods)
• ¼ cup basmati rice, you can also use any other starchy rice.
• 10 cashews or 10 blanched almonds sliced or silvered almonds as desired. You can also use 2 tablespoons sweet raisins if you want.
• 10 unsalted pistachios (sliced/ roughly chopped or blanched & sliced)
• 1 pinch saffron or 1 teaspoon rose water or kewra (optional)

2. Wash rice well at least thrice and drain. If you want you may also soak it until the milk is ready and hot. Pour ¼cup water or grease a heavy bottom pot/ Dutch oven. This helps the kheer from getting scorched at the bottom. Pour milk and bring it to a boil on a medium flame.

3. When it turns hot or comes to a boil, stir in the drained rice.

4. Cook on a medium to low heat until the rice is soft, completely cooked and slightly mushy. During this process, keep stirring often at the bottom (every 3 to 4 minutes) to prevent scorching the milk. Using a spatula, remove the milk solids from the sides and add back to the pot.

5. To check if your rice grains are cooked, mash a few grains with a spoon. They should get mashed easily.

Add Sugar

6. Add 4 to 6 tablespoons sugar. You can add more or less to suit your taste. If using refined sugar use lesser as it tastes more sweet than the organic sugar.

7. Lower the flame and cook till the sugar dissolves completely and the rice kheer turns thicken. At this stage you can taste test and add more sugar if you want. I turn off when it is thick yet of flowy consistency as it turns thicker upon cooling.

8. Add cardamom powder, nuts, rose water (optional) and saffron (optional). Alternately, If you want you may fry the nuts in a tablespoon ghee (on low heat) until light golden, then stir in the raisins until plump. Turn off and pour over the rice kheer to garnish.

9. Make sure you turn off when the kheer reaches this consistency as it turns even more thick upon cooling.

Garnish rice kheer with more nuts before serving.

Faqs

Can I use jaggery to make kheer recipe?

Yes kheer can be made with jaggery. However kheer can split if you add jiggery to hot kheer. So the first method is to bring down the temperature of the kheer by cooling it for about 5 minutes and then stir the powdered jaggery.

The second method is to make a jaggery syrup first, filter to remove impurities and then cool it down completely. Just stir it to the cooked milk & rice.

Kheer in Instant pot vs regular pot

Making it in a regular pot does take some time & it needs continuous stirring to prevent the milk from getting scorched at the bottom.

But making kheer in Instant pot is a breeze as all you need to do is just dump the ingredients in the pot & press the button.

I have been making it more often ever since I started to use instant pot. All I do is just put the ingredients & turn on the porridge button.

The color of the instant pot kheer would be slightly golden due to the caramelization of sugar and it is just normal.

I have also made it a couple of times with jaggery. Once the rice and milk are cooked, cook on a saute mode until it reaches the desired consistency. Remove the steel insert and let the kheer cool down a bit. Then stir in the grated jaggery. Do not cook further as jaggery curdles the milk.

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Rice kheer recipe first published in October 2016. Updated and republished in October 2022.