Tomato rice, thakkali sadam recipe - a flavorful variety goes well with just fryums/ vadams or a simple potato curry. Perfect for weekends or to make a quick lunch.
Thakkali sadam is a spicy variety rice prepared for lunch. Quick and easy fix especially if you are cooking for one.
Check out my other version in this website which is equally flavorful but with different set of flavors. Also check out pulao version which is an one pot recipe.
🍅 What is it?
Tomato rice or Thakkali sadam as we call it in Tamil at home (Thakkali means 'Tomato', Sadam means 'cooked rice').
There are various methods to make this, but mine is make a gravy and mix version.
😍 Why I love it?
Two reasons.
Firstly, I love the garlic flavor in this recipe that goes well with the sweet and tangy tomatoes.
Secondly, it is so versatile that you can make this tomato rice recipe with leftover rice as well!
I love thakkali sadam a lot. Initially never got it right when I tried to make.
Either, will over cook the rice or won't fry the tomato paste to be mixed with rice properly. So the taste won't be perfect.
Then experience taught me how to make a decent thakkali sadam over time. Check out my lip smacking thakkali kuzhambu recipe in this website.
Now a days I can proudly say I make tasty tomato rice. Once when I made this, I could see my MIL like this one and asked to make it the same way other day too.
I felt really happy for the first time that day when I knew I too can make properly as it was my beginning stage in cooking.
Love the garlic flavor in this a lot. So make sure always add it.
👩🍳 Storage
Thakkali sadam stays good for 6 hours easily in room temperature. But it can easily get spoiled if not fried properly or if hands are used to mix.
If taking for lunch box, please be aware this gets spoiled soon. So eat as soon as possible.
If you want to put inside the fridge, first thing cool down and refrigerate immediately. Consume within 24 hours. Re-heat thoroughly before eating again.
Goes well with
Recipe card
Tomato rice | Thakkali recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup Basmati rice
- 3 Tomatoes
- 1 Onion
- 15 Garlic small cloves/ flakes
- 1 teaspoon Red chilli powder
- ½ teaspoon Garam masala powder
- 2 Green chillies
- ⅛ teaspoon Turmeric
- Salt as per taste
- 1 tablespoon Coriander leaves
To Temper
- 1 tablespoon Oil
- 1 teaspoon Ghee
- ½ teaspoon Mustard
- 1 teaspoon Urad dal
- 2 teaspoon Chana dal
- 1 teaspoon Fennel seeds or cumin seeds
- 1 sprig Curry leaves
Instructions
- Wash and soak basmati rice firstly (or any cooking rice) in hot water preferably for 10 mins.
- After that, pressure cook rice for three whistles in medium flame with 1 & ½ cup water.
- Once pressure is released by itself, transfer the rice to a broad vessel, add a teaspoon of ghee or sesame oil and let it cool.
- Separate the grains gently once cooled. You can use left over rice too for this.
- After that, heat a kadai with oil, ghee and temper with the items given under ‘To temper’ table.1 tablespoon Oil, 1 teaspoon Ghee, ½ teaspoon Mustard, 1 teaspoon Urad dal, 2 teaspoon Chana dal, 1 sprig Curry leaves, 1 teaspoon Fennel seeds
- Then add thinly sliced garlic (into circles), slit green chillies and give a fry.
- After that, add sliced onion and fry till translucent.
- Add chopped tomato, required salt and fry until it turns mushy.
- After that, in goes all the powders -red chilli, garam masala, turmeric and the coriander leaves.
- Fry furthermore until tomatoes gets in to mushy gravy for 4-5 minutes until oil separates but still it remains moist and semi gravy.
- Finally mix this gravy with the cooked rice along with sesame oil or ghee if needed and give at-least some 10 minutes standing time.
Video
Notes
- You can add finely chopped carrots and green peas also to add nutritional value
- Cook rice with half salt and the gravy with half salt for more balanced taste.
Step by step
- Wash and soak basmati rice firstly (or any cooking rice) for 10 mins, preferably in hot water.
- Pressure cook for three whistles in medium flame with 1 & ½ cup water.
- Once pressure is released by itself, transfer to a broad vessel, add a teaspoon of ghee or sesame oil and let it cool.
- Separate the grains gently once cooled.
- Heat a kadai with oil,ghee and temper with the items given under ‘To temper’ table.
- Add thinly sliced garlic (into circles), slit green chillies and give a fry. Then add sliced onion and fry till transparent.
- After that, add chopped tomato, add salt and fry until it turns mushy and add the powders-red chilli, garam masala, turmeric and the coriander leaves.
- Fry till tomatoes gets in to mushy gravy for 4-5 minutes until oil separates but still it remains moist and semi gravy.
- Now mix this gravy with the cooked rice along with sesame oil or ghee if needed and give at-least some 10 min. standing time.
Serve with onion raita or korma. I made it for Aj, so he had with his favorite Broccoli stir fry...
Happy cook
WOW beautiful rice, love the colour and the picture
RAKS KITCHEN
Thanx for that quick comment,now I don't miss Asha;D
Kajal
What a nice dish of rice with nice color too and i love your rav dosa this is my favorite dish of south indian. Thanks for your comment. I don't know who is he and how he is take all my recipe and photos without knowing me. Thanks again.
Have a cheerful day!!!
Kajal
anudivya
What a pretty color and picture! Lovely...
n33ma
Beautiful color.....especially love the first pic.
Cham
I love the 1 rst picture, beautifully captured
jeyashrisuresh
Wow beautiful pic.btw what brand of basmati rice u normally use.
Nags
i sent a tomato rice for the mela too, recipe is slightly different though. love the first pic 🙂
Kitchen Flavours
Wow this looks absolutely delish. Love the color and awesome pics.
DEESHA
looks lovely .. its got a beautiful color
Priya
Wow wat a lovely presentation...eyecatching colour..
Viki Xavier.
Lovely tomato rice. Pictures are very very cute:)
RAKS KITCHEN
Jeyashri,
After trying somany brands available I am now sticking to buy DAAWAT 🙂
Are you having a blog spot or you just comment,I can see you around in this blogsphere:)
Daily Meals
Looks colourful...nice recipe...
Jaishree
Tomato Rice looks lovely.. Pretty colour & beautiful pic..
jeyashrisuresh
no i dont have a blog. i m bit lazy and quite busy with my 2 kids,the younger one is little naughty.i too tried so many bands.not good,will try this.i just comment from my google account.
Kaitlin
yumm im craving some starch and that looks SO good!
anu
superb....yummy yummy
Srivalli
Raji ..the first picture looks great!
Uj
looks beautiful...wellcaptured
bindiya
lovely pic, must compliment you!rice looks yumm!!
delhibelle
such a lovely colour, this must have been yummy
Keerthana
I found this recipe on Srivalli's rice mela round up. Tomato rice looks lovely, great pics too!
Sophie
I've made a tomato rice dish before, but never with these unique ingredients. I be they really enhance the flavor :)! I'd like to share your recipe with our readers :). Please let me know if you're interested!
Sophie, Key Ingredient Chief Blogger
[email protected]
Divya Babrekar
Hi Raks,
Made this for lunch today and it was yummy!! 🙂 loved this version without coconut!thank you
Sandhya Raman
One of my favourite rice variety...Nicely presented as usual.Can try adding boiled peas/corn.I tried and it tasted well.
Sandhya Raman
One of my favourites...lovely presentation..
Boiled corns/peas adds good flavour and colour.
RAKS KITCHEN
Ya you are right, I do it in my tomato pulao recipe... 🙂
Ritu
I tried this., it looks great and its yummy. Thank you
Ritu
I tried it.. its yummy.. thank you
Ratna Seethala
Susmita
I tried this recipe . It is so delicious. All my friends and relatives liked it too.
Sowmya D.S.L
making it for lunch now 🙂 I tried many recipes from ur blog before.. it came out so well and my hubby loved it too 🙂
kayathri u
nice recipie....
kayathri u
nice
Shaveta
It came out very yummy.......tried tody:)
Jyothi A
Hello... you didnt mentioned when to add garlic
Raks anand
Read the *2nd step*
Jyothi A
Thank you ji....
Prathima Domakonda
Looks Very Colorful.. Nice one:)
Catapult
Came out pretty well! Thank u 🙂
Well maintained website with beautiful snaps of step by step making.. Rockin Rakskitchen
Renuka Ambbarees
I tried this. So tasty. .done well. Thanks
Safina Mubarak
Fr a non veg cookers lik me tomato s lik oddone out ..nvr had dis rice in past 20yrs r none in my hme evn thnk f dng ... Bt jus wantd to tryout fr my hubby's lunch pak... It realy gav me gud hopedat my hubby ll lov it...thanx fr all de receips raks..bcoz f u m dng grt in kitchen.(everyonethnks its all my hand receipe)..;))n m maintainin de secret)lolzz ;))... Thanks raks
Unknown
Hi raks if u add 2 tsp of fenugreek seeds to this recipe it would give nice flavour
Vijayakumar Shanmugam
I tried in ponni rice only excellent result
thanks
Anders Svensson
I have made a tomato rice dish before, but never with these unique ingredients. I would like to share this recipe with our friends. Thanks for sharing great recipe.
AMRITA P
It was lovely.... I tried n come out well... Thank you mam
Sri Amudha S
What a beautiful dish!!! I did it for the first time. Turned out yum! Thank you so much! I have become a fan of your's!
Anonymous
Hi Rajeswari, thanks for the beautiful recipe! I'm curious, do the urad dal and chana dal get cooked in the liquid of the tomatoes, or should they be cooked prior to adding? Thanks!