Baked rice pudding is one of my absolute favorite dessert recipes.
I don’t know why I thought it would be difficult or fussy to make, but it isn’t at all, and the results sure are worth it.
My mother made a similar version of rice pudding when I was young and I always loved it. It is still my preferred way of cooking this amazing and simple dessert treat.
If you love raisins you can use them instead of the dried apricots called for in recipe, or you can leave them both out if you are a purist and want a plain rice pudding recipe.
Either way, it’s fantastic. I hope you enjoy it.
Some rice pudding recipes call for long grain rice and others for short grain. I think that either would work well, although cooking times may vary slightly.
Baked Rice Pudding
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup long grain rice, uncooked
- 1 cup water
- 2 eggs, large
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup raisins, or chopped dried apricots, both optional
- 2 1/2 cups milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or nutmeg
- whipped cream, optional
Instructions
- Heat the rice and water to boiling in a 1 1/2 quart saucepan, stirring once or twice. Reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer for 14 minutes (do not lift the cover or stir). All the water should be absorbed.
- Heat the oven to 325ºF.
- Beat the eggs in an ungreased 1 1/2 quart casserole. Stir in the sugar, raisins or chopped dried apricots, milk, vanilla, salt and hot rice. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
- Bake uncovered for 45 minutes, stirring every 5 or 10 minutes. When the cooking time is done the top of the pudding should be very wet and not set. Stir well. Let stand for 15 minutes. Enough liquid will be absorbed while standing to make the pudding creamy. Tops with extra cinnamon if desired.
- Note that over baking may cause the pudding to curdle.
- Serve warm or cover and refrigerate about 3 hours or until chilled.
- Serve with whipped cream. Refrigerate any remaining pudding.
Nutrition
Tips:
- Timesaving Tip: Leftover cooked rice also can be used in this recipe. Use 2 cups of cooked rice and decrease the baking time by 5 minutes.
- This recipe can easily be doubled.
- Either cinnamon or nutmeg work in this recipe. I am a real cinnamon lover and not too fond of nutmeg, so I would vote for cinnamon. If you prefer the flavor of nutmeg go ahead and use that. Or, mixing it half and half with the cinnamon gives it a lovely flavor too.
Also try our creamy rice pudding.
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Can you use Chinese rice?
I think it would be fine Marty, although I have never used it for rice pudding so I can’t say for sure. Give it a try and let us know. Karen
Mine turned out dry for some reason.
The only thing I can think of Vicki is watch your cooking time. All ovens are different and maybe yours is faster than mine. Karen
You say in the comments that the milk cooks the rice but in the recipe the first two steps are to cook rice with water. If the recipe actually involves putting uncooked rice in the milk, it makes more sense. Or just tons more rice.
Hi Krista Even when you pre-cook the rice, it continues to absorb the milk as the pudding cooks. I’ve made it many times and it works out. Maybe try using less water to cook the rice and just partially cook it. Then for sure it will absorb the milk as you bake it. And remember that it bakes for quite a while – 45 minutes, or a bit longer if you feel you need it. I hope this helps. Karen
Something is off. That’s way too much milk for a cup of cooked rice. I was siphoning milk out of the pan after 30 mins of cooking.
1/2 cup of uncooked rice = 1 1/2 cups of cooked not 1 cup. It makes a huge difference. Karen
This recipe has such a great flavor! I wanted to make a double recipe for some cooked rice I had on hand. This was a great template for me to work from. I thought I’d add what I did since it seemed like there were some questions about that in the comments. Since you recommended not to use all the milk if your rice is fully cooked, I decided to use restraint. I used an ungreased 9X13 cake pan and added: 4 eggs 3 cups milk 1 cup sugar 2 tsp vanilla 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg Here’s where things got tricky. After I blended all of that in the pan, before I added the rice, I realized 4 cups of rice wasn’t going to do it. I ended up using 8, that’s right, 8 cups of rice. Your trick of stirring it on an incremental basis during the baking process is pure brilliance! I baked it at 325 degrees for 45 mins as recommended, and ended up with the most amazing, albeit giant, pan of creamy rice pudding. It’s the perfect amount of sweetness, and I appreciate your recipe so much. I hope this may help anyone like me that was trying to use up some cooked rice. The real kicker here is that the cooked rice I had was instant rice; you can’t even tell because is just so creamy! Thanks again for the great recipe!
Thanks so much for letting us know what you did Stacie. Sounds great and I’m so glad it worked out so well for you. We can all use your recipe now. Karen
I doubled the recipe and it’s cooking right now, but it’s not setting, it’s all liquid. I don’t know what I did wrong, or what to do now 🙁
Hi Sara, I’m not sure what happened. I’ve made it dozens of times. Maybe you used a different rice?
Rephrase….When using leftover rice do I still use 21/2 cups milk into the cold rice?
When using cooked rice. Do you still use 21/2 cups milk?
No Beverly, I would use less. In the recipe as it is written the milk cooks the rice, so you won’t need as much with cooked rice. I am not entirely sure how much to use. I would cut the amount of milk in half and see how that works.
This is the best rice pudding Recipe I’ve tried. Now it is the only one I’ll be making. Absolutely delicious!
Thanks for the feedback Dawn. I’m glad you love it.