Creamy and comforting, delicious and decadent, scrumptious and simple!
Rice pudding (of one kind or another) shows up in just about every culture no matter where you look. Globally, rice and cream are some of the more readily available ingredients and combining the two together can yield a number of dishes from sweet and sticky biko from the Philippines (made with delicate coconut milk!) to tender Scandinavian risgrynsgröt (with cardamom and butter!) and today’s recipe: Mexican arroz con leche.
Dreamily creamy and scintillatingly cinnamon, arroz con leche is the perfect sweet treat to warm up a cold morning and, when chilled, makes the perfect refresher from a hot day. Simple to make (only requiring one pot and a handful of ingredients), nothing makes arroz con leche sweeter than knowing you made it yourself (or that it was so easy to do!).
A Rice Pudding By Any Other Name…
As I mentioned before, arroz con leche isn’t the only rice pudding you can find throughout the world. Because rice has roots within old trade routes, almost every nation readily has access to it in some form. And because cream has been made globally for millennia, it’s only natural that every culture has some version of sweet rice pudding. However, the number of them that feature cinnamon as a flavor note and use sweetened forms of milk is beyond convenient! If you had a nickel for every time a rice pudding dish with cinnamon popped up in a culture’s comfort food, you’d certainly have more than one – but the most iconic has to be arroz con leche!
That said, if you fancy mixing things up a bit, try swapping out cinnamon for cardamom and the canned milks for extra whole milk and an added bit of butter for Scandinavian risgrynsgröt. Or substitute the canned milks for heavy whipping cream and add blackberries for delicious kalter milchreis (a German rice pudding evoking the flavors of berries and cream!). Add chocolate mix into your boiling milk to make a hot chocolate rice pudding a bit like Filipino champorado or add chopped nuts to our recipe for arroz con leche to attain Italian flavors, similar to those found in torta di riso.
There are practically no limits as rice pudding is one of those fantastically flexible dishes that gets more delicious the more you explore!
FAQs & Tips
How to Make Ahead and Store?
Because arroz con leche can (and, honestly, should) be eaten cold, making it ahead and storing it in the fridge is just as viable an option as eating it all hot off the burner! Let your arroz con leche cool and store in sealable ramekins (or any other nonporous container) and keep in the fridge for up to 5 days – or until you’re hungry for the delicious global appeal of a simple rice pudding. If you want your leftover arroz con leche warm, pop the ramekin into a warm oven to bring it up to temp or microwave your leftover pudding until satisfactory.
My Arroz Con Leche Is a Bit Runny, Did I Do Something Wrong?
If you’ve finished cooking your arroz con leche and it’s less like a pudding and more like sweet rice soup, it may be beneficial to cook it for longer until the liquid reduces; however, if your rice is getting overdone and you still can’t manage to reduce the liquid volume in your pudding, it may be advantageous to add a whisked egg to the pot (while being careful not to accidentally scramble it!) to thicken the solution.
My Arroz Con Leche Rice Looks and Tastes Undercooked. What Happened?
Different styles of rice require different cook times and water contents. Long grain rice requires more water, for instance. It’s important to consider the default cooking instructions on your selected rice and consider the desired texture of your finished pudding before cooking – black and brown rice, for instance, are healthier options but absorb a lot more water during cooking!
Serving Suggestions
Arroz con leche is a phenomenal breakfast, snack, or dessert. It works well after all kinds of savory Mexican delicacies, such as this Easy-To-Make Mexican Lasagna, or as an accompaniment to this Decadent Mexican Chocolate Cake!
As a breakfast or brunch, serve your arroz con leche with crowd-pleasers such as these Baked Egg and Kale Cups, Easy Shakshuka, freshly sliced bread and a plate of Orange Sunshine Coffee Cakes.
Arroz con Leche (Mexican Rice Pudding)
Ingredients Â
- 1 cup long-grain white rice
- 7 cups water
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 can 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- 1 can 12 ounces evaporated milk
- 1 cup whole milk
- Ground cinnamon for garnish
InstructionsÂ
- In a large pot, bring 7 cups of water to a boil. Add the rice and cinnamon sticks, and simmer for 18 minutes until the rice is tender.
- Drain the rice and remove the cinnamon sticks. Return the rice to the pot.
- Stir in the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to low.
- Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens to a pudding-like consistency.
- Serve the Arroz con Leche warm, sprinkled with ground cinnamon on top.
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