How to Make Herbed Rice (Vegetarian Nasi Ulam)

Cooking with herbs, growing your own herbs, and adding herbs into your dishes, it all comes together beautifully. For those growing your own herbs, making herbed rice will be simple. For the rest, it's about buying. But fret not, even if you're in another part of the world outside of Asian countries or Malaysia, herbed rice is still possible. Use herbs that are easily available - even rosemary, thyme, or whatever you can find locally.

For Asians, our local herbs generally include lemongrass (serai), kaffir lime leaves (daun limau purut), turmeric leaves (daun kunyit), torch ginger flower (bungka kantan) or even Thai betel leaves (daun kaduk), some of the common ones. There are also other herbs, some with names unfamiliar even to many Malaysians. Still, it’s all about what you can get, the types of herbs you have access to.

The best part of it all: this herbed rice is a vegetarian, vegan, and plant-based dish. It’s also about cooking basmati rice, or even using leftover cooked rice, and tossing it with herbs, chillies, and shallots. To elevate this nasi ulam, the natural sweet burst comes from raisins.

 

Herbed rice, or nasi ulam, is complete, aromatic, packed with health benefits, and fulfilling. A great example of clean eating as well.

Step-by-step cooking video tutorial on how to make herbed rice at home. Use your local herbs to prepare a healthy, home-cooked one-pot meal.

Ingredients
1 cup cooked basmati rice

Other Ingredients
1 lemongrass
½ ginger torch flower
A few Thai betel leaves
2 to 3 kaffir lime leaves
A few daun selom (water dropwort or water celery)
A few ulam raja (king salad)
1 turmeric leaf
Red chillies as needed 
** Slice all these herbs thinly
A handful of dried black raisins
1-2 chopped shallots
Salt to taste

Method

Into the warm or cooled cooked rice, add all the sliced herbs, raisins, and chopped shallots.

Toss everything together until well combined.

Taste for salt and adjust as needed.