The subtle, savory saffron flavor compliments rich flavors so well. This Saffron Rice recipe tastes buttery, even though it’s dairy free. It’s super easy to make for a large crowd, and takes less than 30 minutes from start to finish. It’s also very pretty!

Why This Saffron Rice Recipe Is So Good

• It looks so pretty! Perfect for festive occasions
• Easily spruce up regular basmati rice 
• Complements rich dishes really nicely
• Lovely floral aroma
• A wonderful buttery flavor with no butter

Ingredients 

• Basmati rice
• Broth (chicken or vegetable)
• Saffron
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Onions

How To Make This Saffron Rice Recipe – Step By Step

1. Wash and drain the rice. In 4-qt pot, heat with olive oil over medium heat. When oil is shimmering, add onions and fry for 3 minutes, until softened and light brown. Stir in rice, broth, saffron + soaking water and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat.
2. Once it starts boiling, immediately cover and turn to low heat.
3. Let the rice cook on low heat, undisturbed (no peeking!) for 20 minutes. Turn off heat. Let sit for another 5 minutes covered to finish steaming. Use a fork to fluff up the rice.

What Is Saffron?

Saffron is a plant. The dried stigmas (thread-like parts of the flower) are used to make saffron spice. It can take 75,000 saffron blossoms to produce a single pound of saffron spice. In foods, saffron is used as a spice, yellow food coloring, and as a flavoring agent.

Saffron Rice

This is a great rice recipe when plain basmati rice just won’t do. The saffron adds such a lovely, bright golden color to the rice, in contrast with the crimson saffron threads dispersed throughout. Saffron rice has a delicate, floral aroma that you can’t duplicate with any other spice. There are 3 secrets making this rice.

What’s The Best Saffron To Use?

Use good quality saffron. Don’t buy the cheap stuff. Everyone says that saffron is the world’s most expensive spice – true if you are counting ounce per ounce. But you use so little of it each time.

Here’s the key to buying saffron. The threads should be almost all bright red. If you see yellow, that means when the threads were harvested, they picked the flower portion that was STIGMA (a.k.a. expensive good stuff) and STIGMA (bad, tasteless shit). I purchase my saffron from www.saffron.com. For $40, I get the absolute best quality stuff and it will last me many, many scrumptious dishes.

Is Saffron Rice The Same As Yellow Rice?

Kind of! Yellow rice is essentially white rice, which has been colored by adding turmeric or saffron. In addition to giving the rice a bright color, these spices render it a piquant flavor. Yellow rice when colored with saffron has an earthy fragrant aroma and turmeric adds heat to it.

Variations For This Recipe

Here are some of my favorite combinations: 

• Cumin + a couple tablespoonfuls of tomato paste for Mexican rice – Dried oregano + basil (basically any dried leafy herb mixture).
• Curry powder + raisins – A few dashes of soy sauce + sesame oil + minced green onions after the rice is done steaming.
• Garlic powder + stir in chopped fresh parsley after rice is done steaming.
• Any of the above + stir in thawed frozen peas after rice is done steaming.

Top Tips For This Saffron Rice Recipe

• You should soak the threads in a little bit of hot water to really open up the spice and release its flavor. Use the threads+soaking water in your dish.
• Fry onions before steaming the rice. It gives rice an earthy, caramelized onion flavor. You can substitute minced shallots for the onions.
• Salt. Everything tastes better with salt. This rice comes alive when you add something salty to it. In this recipe, I used broth instead of water to steam the rice. Use fresh, canned or concentrated broth base. Now its time to be creative. 

Check Out These Other Rice Recipes

• Bobby Flay’s Crispy Coconut Scallion Rice Recipe
• How to cook rice in the microwave, perfect every time
• Pineapple Fried Rice
• Chinese Sausage and Rice Recipe

Have you tried this Saffron Rice recipe? Feel free to leave a star rating and I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Saffron Basmati Rice

Jaden Hair

Servings: 4-6 Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 25 minutes

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American, Asian

Servings 6 servings

Calories 279 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 2 cups Basmati Rice
• 3 ½ cups Broth chicken or vegetable
• 1 pinch Saffron threads soaked in 2T hot water for 10 minutes
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 T olive oil
• ½ cup diced onions

Instructions

 

• Wash and drain the rice. In 4-qt pot, heat with olive oil over medium heat. When oil is shimmering, add onions and fry for 3 minutes, until softened and light brown. Stir in rice, broth, saffron + soaking water and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat.
• Once it starts boiling, immediately cover and turn to low heat.
• Let the rice cook on low heat, undisturbed (no peeking!) for 20 minutes. Turn off heat. Let sit for another 5 minutes covered to finish steaming. Use a fork to fluff up the rice.

Nutrition

Calories: 279kcalCarbohydrates: 52gProtein: 5gFat: 5gSaturated Fat: 1gSodium: 940mgPotassium: 90mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 292IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 20mgIron: 1mg

Keyword rice recipe, saffron recipe, saffron rice

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