Tomato rice is a tangy rice based dish prepared with cooked rice, cooked tomatoes and tempering of South Indian spices.
Table of Contents
Tomato Rice
Tomato rice is a rice-based dish, made with cooked rice, onions, tomatoes and nuts. Tomato rice makes an excellent dish for lunch box either for kids or adults.
It takes less than 30 minute to make, but if you have cooked and cooled rice ready, you can have the rice ready in 10 minutes.
Each household have their own recipe for tomato rice with the addition on various spice powders like coriander powder, jeera powder and even garam masala powder.
But I keep it simple with just tomato and onions, with salt and turmeric powder. If I have some thick Tomato Thokku ready in my fridge, I add a tablespoon of that for extra flavour.
Ingredients for Tomato Rice
Rice – you can use any rice for tomato rice. I’ve tried them with many Indian rice varieties and they’ve turned out great.
Tomatoes – I prefer to use the hybrid tomatoes for this recipe. I’ve used the naati tomatoes before and they become quite sour tasting when used. For this recipe, you need 2-3 large tomatoes, but if you are using naati tomatoes, you can limit it to two.
Onions – One medium-sized onion, finely chopped
Green Chilli – 1 or 2, slit lengthwise.
Peanuts or cashew nuts – I like adding them because it adds a nice crunch to the dish.
Cooking oil – I like using groundnut oil for this, but you can choose any.
The other ingredients are mustard seeds, two sprigs of curry leaves and salt.
You can also use any store-bought Tomato Thokku or homemade one to enhance the taste of the tomato rice.
To help you with adjusting the sourness, you can keep the jaggery powder of sugar handy as well.
How to make Tomato Rice
Cooking the rice
The first step is to prepare cooked and cooled rice. Start off by washing the rice until the water is clear. Add the washed rice to a small pressure cooker. For every measure or cup of rice, you will need to add 2 cups of water. If you add more water, say 3 cups, the rice will turn out mushy. You want rice that doesn’t stick – “uduruduru” as we say in Tamil or Kannada.
Pressure cook for 3 whistles on high flame and lower the flame and let it simmer for a minute. Turn off the heat. Once the pressure of the cooker comes down, remove the rice from the cooker and spread it out on a plate. This will help the rice cool down faster. You could also keep it under a fan or place it in the fridge for a few minutes.
[Another way to cook rice is in a large pressure cooker. Start by adding 1-2 inches of water at the bottom of the pressure cooker. Add the rinsed rice to a stainless steel container, add 2 cups of water and then place the container in the large pressure cooker. Place a plate on top of the rice and close the lid of the pressure cooker. Let 3 whistles go and switch off the cooker. Once the pressure comes down, spread the rice on a plate and keep it under the fan for cooling.
You can also cook rice in a rice cooker with the same measurement after washing the rice. The rice will be ready in 20 minutes. Remove the rice from the cooker and spread it on a plate and allow it to cool down.
Alternatively, you can cook rice the previous night and keep it in the fridge. Just make sure to fluff up the rice and make sure the grains are not sticking to each other before putting the container of rice in the fridge.
Prepping the other ingredients
As your rice is being cooled down, you can slice your onions, green chillies and wash the curry leaves.
Chop the tomatoes into small pieces, not a puree, but as small as you can. You can also use a manual chopper to get the finely diced texture.
You can also roast cashew nuts of peanuts with some ghee or oil in a small pan until they are golden brown. If you prefer to have a really crunchy texture of nuts when eating tomato rice, you can follow this step. Else you can add the nuts directly to the oil in the next steps.
Making the Tomato rice
Place a kadai on medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of oil and let it warm up. Now add the mustard seeds and curry leaves to the oil. Let the seeds sputter.
If you haven’t already added the cashew nuts of peanuts, you can add them now and let it get to golden brown.
Next, add the green chillies and onions and saute them. Let the onions cook and become soft. At this stage, add the finely chopped tomatoes. To this, add the turmeric powder and start off with one tsp of salt.
Mix this well until the tomatoes go soft. It should take about 5 minutes for the tomatoes to cook down completely.
If you have some Tomato Thokku in your fridge, now would be the time to add one tablespoon of it. I love the flavour that the thokku brings about. If you don’t have the thokku, it’s perfectly fine. If you want a really spicy tomato rice, you can add some chilli powder, coriander powder and jeera powder. I’ve seen some recipes that add garam masala as well, buts it’s completely up to you.
Once the tomatoes have cooked, turn off the flame and add the cooked and cooled rice. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients until the tomato and onion masala coats all the rice.
Do a taste test of the tomato rice and adjust salt as required. If you feel the tomato rice it too tangy, you can sprinkle 1 tbsp of jaggery powder and adjust the sourness of the rice.
You can serve this delicious Tomato Rice with Cucumber Raita, Channa Salad and Papad.
Storage and Shelf Life
Tomato rice is a good dish for packing into lunch boxes for kids and office goers. They will not go bad unless the temperatures are really high in your city/town.
You can store tomato rice in the fridge for up to 3 days, after which it’s best to toss it. When you remove it from the fridge for reheating, do it just once and not reheat any more times after that.
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Recipe
Tomato Rice
Ingredients
- 1 cup Rice (uncooked, roughly 150-180g)
- 2-3 Tomatoes large
- 1 Onion small
- 2 sprigs Curry Leaves
- 1 Green Chilli optional
- 2 tsp Tomato Chutney optional
- 2 tbsp Cashew Nuts or Peanuts
- ¼ tsp Sugar / Jaggery optional
Instructions
- The first step is to wash the rice. Rinse the rice until the water is clear. You can either add the rinsed rice to a small pressure cooker, pour in twice the quantity of water. Or you can add the rinsed rice to a vessel, add water and place this vessel inside a large pressure cooker. (For every cup of rice and add 2 cups of water. The cup measurement can be any cup of your choice.)
- Let out 3 whistles and turn off the cooker. Let the pressure release naturally.
- Once the pressure has released, remove the cooked rice and spread it out on a large plate to allow it to cool down.
- While the rice is being cooled, you can prep the tomato onion masala.
- Place a kadai on a medium flame and add 2 tsps of cooking oil. Once the oil is warm, add 1 tsp of mustard seeds, and peanuts / cashew nuts. Let the mustard seeds sputter and nuts be roasted.
- Next, add the sliced green chillies, finely chopped onions and saute it for a minute until the onions go soft.
- Once the onions are soft, add the tomatoes and some salt. Close the lid of the kadai and let the tomatoes cook. The tomatoes will cook in under five minutes.
- If you are using tomato thokku, you can add it now and saute for a couple of minutes. The thokku adds an extra taste. After the tomatoes are cooked, you can turn off the heat.
- Now, add the cooked and cooled rice to this tomato mixture. Take your time to mix all the ingredients well. Adjust the rice for salt levels. If you think the rice tastses a little too sour, you can sprinkle in some jaggery powder to neutralise the sourness.
- Serve your delicious tomato rice with raita, channa sundal and papad.
