Curd rice or Yogurt Rice is a healthy, delicious, traditional South Indian comfort food prepared using cooked rice, curd (dahi or yogurt), and tempering with aromatic spices in less than 30 minutes. It tastes the best when served with pickle and papad. It is also popularly known as mosaranna, thayir sadam, and daddojanam.
Check out sweet and savory dahi poha, lemon rice, popularly known as chitranna, South Indian ghee rice.
What is Curd Rice?
Curd rice is also called yogurt rice in English, mosaranna in Karnataka, thayir sadam or bagala bath in Tamil, Daddojanam in Andhra, and dahi chawal or dahi bhaat in Hindi.
To make curd rice, all you need is good quality curd or yogurt, pre-cooked rice tempered with Indian spices and roasted nuts. Thayir Sadam or mosaranna is offered in many South temples to god, which is then served as prasadam. We prepare this rice during Navratri, offer it to goddess Lakshmi, and then distribute it to devotees as prasadam. You can read the significance of curd on Navratri here.
Rice with curd soothes your stomach and helps in digestion. It is thus a good food for infants, toddlers, and adults. My family likes to take this rice recipe for their lunchbox. We also make this rice as a cleansing and comfort food post-Diwali celebrations.
There are different ways to curd rice. Hote style or restaurant style, temple style, brahmin style, all with minor differences in ingredients. This recipe for yogurt rice (mosaranna, daddojanam) is super simple and easy to make at your home on a daily basis.
Curd Rice benefits
Curd is high in calcium, protein, probiotics, and other essential nutrients that are needed for your daily body requirement. South Indians, therefore, consider this a power food, and Brahmins love to have curds and rice atleast for one meal daily.
Yogurt is a natural coolant. Thus considered one of the best summer recipes to beat the heat.
Our grandmothers always considered this as the best home remedy whenever we had an upset stomach. It helps in digestion.
While you are here, also check out South Indian bisi bele bath, vangi bath (brinjal rice), quick coconut rice
What are the ingredients of curd rice/yogurt rice?
Rice: You can use sona masuri, basmati, or jeera rice, or to make it even healthier, you can use brown rice. A fan of millet or looking for a healthy weight-loss recipe for your next meal? Then add quinoa or millet instead of rice.
Curd: Use homemade or store-bought fresh curd or yogurt. See that the yogurt is not sour; Greek plain yogurt can be used to make this yogurt rice.
Tempering: Also called tadka, prepared using mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal chana dal, hing, curry leaves, ginger, green and dry red chilies, hing (asafoetida), and some nuts like cashews and almonds.
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Step-by-step instructions
Cooking rice and mixing it with curd
- Cook the rice in any method you are comfortable with (stove top, instant pot, or pressure cooker).
- Let it cool down to room temperature.
- To this cooked rice, add curd or yogurt, and salt, and mix well. Depending on your curd's thickness, you may have to add little water if needed. I have used very thick, full-fat yogurt.
Tempering or Tadka
- Heat oil in a pan on medium flame. Add mustard seeds. When they start to splutter, add cumin seeds, urad dal, chana dal, and hing.
- When the dal starts becoming light golden in color, add cashews, almonds, and ginger, and -saute for a few seconds.
- Add green chilli, red chilli, and curry leaves, and saute for a few more seconds. Switch off the flame.
- Pour the seasoning over the rice and curd mixture. Mix and serve or keep it in the refrigerator till you are ready to serve.
Tips
- You can even mix the rice and curd, refrigerate and add the tempering or tadka just before you are ready to serve.
- This rice thickens, so adjust consistency before serving by adding more curd and water or a mixture of both.
- See that you use fresh, thick curd and not sour ones.
- For better taste, make sure you are generous with seasonings (tempering). This gives rice additional flavor and taste:-)
- Feel free to garnish with pomegranate, grated carrots, and finely chopped coriander leaves if desired.
- Skip the chilies if serving toddlers and infants.
- Overcook the rice slightly from what you normally cook. This will make your rice creamy. If using leftover rice, make sure you sprinkle some water and make it soft.
- Rice must come to room temperature before you add curd. Never mix hot rice with curds. This will separate them and make it unpleasant to pack them for lunchbox.
- Not a rice fan, but I want to try this soothing and cooling curd recipe. Then substitute rice with millet, quinoa, poha, brown rice, couscous, vermicelli, broken wheat, etc. Millet is the new trending way of making this rice, also known as millet yogurt rice.
- If you want to make this rice during Navratri fasting and if rice is not allowed, use vrat ke chawal to make the recipe.
- Add milk, cream, or some sugar to prevent the curd rice from turning sour.
- Add more green and red chilies if you like the spicy version of this rice.
What to eat with curd rice/yogurt rice?
- It tastes the best when served with spicy pickles and crispy papad. You can also serve it with Andhra podi (gunpowder).
- In restaurants or hotels, South Indian thali meals come with curd rice as one of the side dishes with lemon pickle.
- It is served at room temperature, and some like it chilled.
Storage suggestions
If there are any leftovers, you can store the yogurt rice in the refrigerator for 1-2 days. This turns thick on cooling. Adjust with the addition of some water.
Do not freeze or reheat the yogurt rice. It may separate or curdle.
Recipe FAQS
In India, the curd is traditionally prepared by curdling the milk with natural substances like lemon juice. To make yogurt, you need to ferment it with artificial acids. But if a recipe calls for yogurt you can use Indian dahi or curd or vice versa.
Yes. Simply substitute curd with any dairy-free yogurt of your choice. All other ingredients remain the same.
Yes. This is a healthy and delicious dish to add to your daily meal plan. It is rich in probiotics, antioxidants, calcium, and protein and also helps to restore microbial balance, which aids in digestion.
Yes. You can eat yogurt rice (thayir sadam) every day as a meal or part of your meal. It helps fight any disease-causing bacteria.
In the first place, don't add sour curd while making rice. If curd rice turns sour, you can reduce the sourness by adding milk, cream, or sugar.
Short-grain rice like ponni, sona masuri, or long-grain rice like basmati can be used to make this rice. Just cook them a little more so that the rice becomes creamy.
One serving of curd rice contains 360 calories with 16g of protein.
More Indian Vegetarian Rice Recipes
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Recipe card
Curd Rice | Indian Yogurt Rice | Thayir Sadam
Equipment
- Pot
- Tadka Pan
Ingredients
- 1 cup Rice
- 2 cups Yogurt (Curd)
- ½ to 1 cup Water, approx (add only if the rice becomes thick, adjust accordingly)
- Salt, to taste
For the tempering / tadka
- 2 tablespoon Oil Coconut oil or any cooking oil of your choice.
- 1 teaspoon Mustard Seeds
- 1 teaspoon Cumin Seeds
- 1 teaspoon Urad dal
- 1 tablespoon Chana dal
- ¼ tsp Asafoetida / Hing
- 1 ½ tablespoon Cashews
- 1 tablespoon Almonds optional
- 1 tablespoon Ginger julienne
- 1 Green chilie chopped
- 1 Dry red chilie broken
- 8 Curry leaves
Instructions
Mixing curds with rice
- Cook the rice in any method that you are comfortable with (stove top or pressure cooker). Let it cool down to room temperature.1 cup Rice
- To this cooked rice, add yogurt, salt, and mix well. Depending on how thick your curd is, you may have to adjust the water accordingly. I have used very thick, full fat yogurt.2 cups Yogurt, ½ to 1 cup Water, approx, Salt, to taste
Making the tempering or tadka
- Heat oil in a pan on medium flame. Add mustard seeds. When they start to splutter, add cumin seeds, urad dal, chana dal, and hing.2 tablespoon Oil, 1 teaspoon Mustard Seeds, 1 teaspoon Cumin Seeds, 1 teaspoon Urad dal, 1 tablespoon Chana dal, ¼ teaspoon Asafoetida
- When the dal starts becoming light golden in color, add cashews, almonds, ginger, and saute for a few seconds1 ½ tablespoon Cashews, 1 tablespoon Almonds, 1 tablespoon Ginger
- Add green chilli, red chilli, and curry leaves, and saute for a few more seconds. Switch off the flame.1 Green chilie, 1 Dry red chilie, 8 Curry leaves
- Pour the seasoning over the curd and rice mixture. You can serve it immediately or store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.
Notes
- You can even mix the rice and curd, refrigerate and add the tempering or tadka just before you are ready to serve.
- This rice thickens, so adjust consistency before serving by adding more curd and water or a mixture of both.
- See that you use fresh, thick curd and not sour ones.
- For better taste, make sure you are generous with seasonings (tempering). This gives rice additional flavor and taste:-)
- Feel free to garnish with pomegranate, grated carrots, and finely chopped coriander leaves if desired.
- Skip the chilies if serving toddlers and infants.
- Overcook the rice slightly from what you normally cook. This will make your rice creamy. If using leftover rice, make sure you sprinkle some water and make it soft.
- Rice must come to room temperature before you add curd. Never mix hot rice with curds. This will separate them and make it unpleasant to pack them for lunchbox.
- Not a rice fan, but I want to try this soothing and cooling curd recipe. Then substitute rice with millet, quinoa, poha, brown rice, couscous, vermicelli, broken wheat, etc. Millet is the new trending way of making curd rice, also known as millet yogurt rice.
- If you want to make curd rice during Navratri fasting and if rice is not allowed, use vrat ke chawal to make the recipe.
- Add milk, cream, or some sugar to prevent the curd rice from turning sour.
- Add more green and red chilies if you like the spicy curd rice.
What to serve with curd rice?
- It tastes the best when served with spicy pickles and crispy papad. You can also serve it with Andhra podi (gunpowder).
- In restaurants or hotels, South Indian thali meals come with curd rice as one of the side dishes with lemon pickle.
- It is served at room temperature, and some like it chilled.
Nutrition
This post for Indian yogurt rice was first published in Sept 2019. Updates with more details and calories. In all the images, I first poured the rice mixed with curd into a bowl and topped it with fresh tempering or tadka in each bowl. This is only for photography. Mix the rice with a tempering (tadka) and eat for the best flavor.
Biana
This rice dish looks delicious! A great idea for lunch.
Cathleen
Okay wow!! I love this rice, thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It's a new favourite for sure!
Elizabeth
This is such a flavorful and healthy way to prepare rice. The cashews and almonds give it a nice crunch.