Instant Pot Rasam Rice

Instant Pot rasam rice is comfort in a bowl made in minutes, all in one-pot. Spicy tangy notes of rasam infused with rice is delicious with a side of potato fry.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Indian

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 7 minutes

Time for Instant Pot to come to pressure and time for pressure release 15 minutes

Total Time 27 minutes

Servings servings

Calories 427kcal

Author Manju

Equipment

Instant Pot

Ingredients

2 cups rice I used the variety ponni rice. But you can use any white rice with no strong fragrance to it.
1 key lime sized ball tamarind to make 2 cups of pulp / extract from it
6 cups water
2 tbsp rasam powder / sambar powder use less if you are worried about the heat and then add more at the end and let it simmer for a few minutes.
1 tsp jaggery
2 medium tomatoes chopped
½ tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp crushed black pepper
salt to taste
¼ cup minced cilantro to garnish
2 tbsp oil or ghee
5-6 curry leaves
1 tsp mustard seeds
¼ tsp asafetida

Instructions

Soak the tamarind in ½ cup of warm water.
Rinse the rice well and add it to the Instant Pot.
Squeeze the pulp out of the tamarind and strain it out. Repeat the process with another ½ cup of warm water. You dont have to soak it this time as the tamarind is already broken down. This is just to get any extra pulp in the tamarind.
Add the tamarind pulp, rasam powder or sambar powder, jaggery, chopped tomatoes, turmeric powder, black pepper, salt and water to the rice.
Close the Instant Pot and set the knob on the lid to SEALING.
Set the Instant Pot to MANUAL mode and adjust time to 7 minutes.
Once done, wait for pressure to release naturally, move the knob to VENT and open carefully once all the pressure is gone. If you are in a hurry, you can do a quick release by moving the knob to VENT position manually and then open once pressure is completely gone. You can tell when the little pin next to it goes down.
Heat the ghee or oil in a small saucepan and add the mustard seeds to it. Once they splutter, add the asafetida and curry leaves. Pour this on top of the rasam rice and mix well.
Garnish with minced cilantro and serve hot.

Notes

Rasam and rice are usually eaten with more rasam than the rice to have a stew like consistency. To get this when making rasam rice in the Instant Pot, I use more water to cook the rice - a ratio of 1:3 or rice:water
You can use rasam powder or sambar powder as the spice powder for this recipe. I usually use sambar powder as it tastes like rasam rice in the end and I don't like to have another set of spice powder mix that I have to make and store. Amma always made rasam with sambar powder, so I have also always done that. If you have a favorite rasam powder you use, feel free to use that.
Adding jaggery to anything sour and spicy rounds up the flavor and this is also something I have picked up from my mom and grandmom.

Nutrition