For the past few months, there has been a war about how best to prepare Nigerian Coconut Rice with team White Coconut Rice always fighting with team Jollof Coconut Rice. Honestly, there’s absolutely no need to fight as both meals are delicious. It’s all about your personal preference.

Ingredients for White Coconut Rice

The following quantity of ingredients serves 4 people.

420g (~1 lb) long grain parboiled rice

400 mls Coconut Milk

400 ml chicken stock/broth

30 small shrimps

2 tatashe pepper (alternative: Tribelli peppers)

1 red onion

A handful of diced sausage

1 big seasoning cube (optional)

Habanero peppers (Atarodo: to taste)

Black pepper (to taste)

Salt (to taste)

Green peas

Green beans

Notes on the ingredients

We recommend the long grain parboiled rice because it is the rice that works best with the recipe detailed on this page. It is the best rice for all Nigerian one-pot rice recipes.

You can use tinned coconut milk but it’s preferable to use freshly extracted coconut.

Red onions are recommended for this meal because it adds some color. Apart from that, any onions will work.

The green ingredients (peas and beans) are for color. Feel free to use your favorite similar ingredients.

If you want the coconut rice to be completely white with no single tint of color like the one in the image above, do not use any ingredient that transfers color. In that case, skip the tatashe peppers and hard port sausage. You can use pale looking sausages and hot dogs because they do not transfer color.

If you can, prepare the White Coconut Rice with all these ingredients listed above. It is so delicious!

Before you cook White Coconut Rice

Parboil/Precook the long grain parboiled rice. Add it to a pot of a generous quantity of boiling water and cook on medium heat for 8-10 minutes. This time is for the quantity of rice stated in the list of ingredients. If yours is more, you will need more time. When done with the parboiling, you should be able to cut the grain of rice with your finger nails: no resistance or rubbery feel.

The science of parboiling long grain parboiled rice:

Long grain parboiled rice contains lots of starch and is hard. When you cook this rice as is without first of all parboiling it (especially with rice recipes where ingredients are cooked in the same pot as the rice (one-pot rice recipes), the starch content will make the rice sticky and soggy. The hard nature will hamper its absorption of water, again leading to sticky, soggy and burnt rice when you are done.

When we parboil/precook the rice, we reduce the starch content as some of it is poured away.

When happy with the rice, pour in a sieve/colander and rinse with plenty of cool water to cool it down. Leave in the sieve/colander to drain.

Cut the sausage into small cubes.

Dice the peppers and cut the green beans into about 1 inch long pieces.

Chop the onions.

Precook the shrimps and peel them or not depending on how you like them.

Cooking Directions

Pour the chicken stock and coconut milk into a sizable pot. Add the black pepper and seasoning cube. Cover the pot and start cooking till it boils.

Add the precooked rice, Stir and add salt to taste. At this point the liquid should be at the same level as the rice. If not, top it up with water. If the liquid is much more than the rice, you will end up with soggy coconut rice. If you used long grain parboiled rice and you parboiled/precooked it correctly, the Coconut Rice will be done by the time the level of water dries up. There will be no need to add more water.

Cover the pot and start cooking on medium heat.

Once it boils, add the hard pork sausage. The hard pork sausage needs to be cooked but if you are using another type of sausage that does not need much cooking.

When the water dries to exactly the same level as the rice, add the shrimps and continue cooking.

When the water is almost dry, add the soft ingredients: onions, green beans and green peas and the tatashe and habanero peppers.

Cover and continue cooking till all the water dries up. Stir with a spatula till all the ingredients are well combined. That’s it!

The White Coconut Rice is best served on its own but feel free to serve it with Steamed Leafy Veggies.

If you have any questions about preparing the White Coconut Rice, drop your questions in the comment session.

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