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This Rice Stuffing is made pilaf-style with cranberries, pecans, scallions, and a little curry powder for warmth. Outstanding with any holiday menu, but easy enough to make every night of the week.
There is something so addicting about the combination of curry powder, cranberries, and scallions. It’s good in chicken salad, it’s good with couscous, and it’s positively divine with rice!
These aren’t the classic flavors of Thanksgiving, but they are a welcome addition to any holiday table nonetheless. This recipe is also unexpectedly vegan: I didn’t set out to create something plant-based, but it happened, and it’s so good!
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- White rice: Search out long-grain, jasmine, or basmati rice, but avoid short-grain rice (bomba, risotto, sushi) which is too glutinous and sticky for this recipe. If you have your heart set on brown rice or fiber-rich wild rice stuffing, the dish will need additional time to cook.
- Curry powder: Not one spice, but actually a blend of a bunch of different spices (including but not limited to coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger, mustard, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, and chili pepper). Curry powder adds color and flavor to whatever it touches.
Step-by-step instructions
- In a medium saucepan or large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in rice, cumin, and curry powder, and cook, stirring frequently, until rice is lightly browned, about 7 to 10 minutes.
- Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broth, bay leaf, and salt, and bring to boil.
- Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until rice is tender and all the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 to 17 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter, large bowl, or casserole dish. Remove bay leaf and fluff with a fork. Stir in cranberries and pecans. Garnish with green onions.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes about 3 cups of rice stuffing total, four 3/4-cup servings.
- Storage: Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days, or freeze up to 3 months.
- Mix up your mix-ins: This recipe can be used as a jumping-off point for many other combinations of flavors. Try celery, dried cherries and walnuts, chives, lemon zest, or another type of ground spice in the rice.
- Herbs: Customize this rice stuffing to taste with your favorite fresh herbs like fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh sage, or fresh parsley instead of cumin and curry powder. Dried herbs will also work here.
- Rice cooker: Start the recipe as written on the stove, up to the point you add the broth. Then transfer the rice to a rice cooker, pour in the broth, bay leaf, and salt, and cook according to the cooker’s manual. When finished, fluff with a fork, season with a pinch of salt, and stir in the nuts and fruit before adding the scallions.
- Crockpot Stuffing: Save your oven space and make bread stuffing in your slow cooker. Using this recipe, you’ll still have soft, chewy bread cubes with plenty of crispy edges without using your oven.
- Gluten-Free Stuffing: Transform gluten-free bread into a side dish worth making. You’d never know the difference when you tuck into this glorious gluten-free bread stuffing.
- Make Ahead Stuffing: This is a classic bread stuffing you can make in advance. See my full Make-Ahead Thanksgiving menu for more ways to cook in advance including a Make-Ahead Roasted Turkey, Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes (that won’t get watery in the freezer), and Make-Ahead Pumpkin Pie.
- Sausage stuffing: My homemade Cornbread Dressing is made with plenty of sausage for a spicy kick.
- Small batch: My Bread Stuffing for Two is the same delicious, buttery stuffing with all your favorite flavors, but scaled down to a smaller quantity for small gatherings. See my full Thanksgiving for Two Menu which includes a pair of roasted Cornish Hens with Stuffing and two Mini Pumpkin Pies for dessert.
- Traditional bread stuffing: To make my homemade oven-baked Bread Stuffing recipe, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and rub a 9×13-inch baking dish with butter. Add stuffing to the baking dish, cover tightly with foil, and bake until mostly heated through, about 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake until crispy edges form, about 10 to 20 minutes longer.
- Vegan stuffing: Filled with wild mushrooms, leeks, fresh kale, and all the classic Thanksgiving herbs you love, this Vegan Stuffing recipe has bread cubes that are soft and chewy on the inside with browned, crispy edges outside. The entire recipe is 100% vegan and delicious.
- Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes: Plan your next full or partial vegan Thanksgiving menu with delicious, mouth-watering Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes. These plant-powered classics taste as good as, or even better than, their traditional versions, and they are guaranteed to disappear no matter who is at the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pure wild rice uses considerably more liquid and needs more cooking time, too. Use 6 cups of broth for every cup of wild rice, follow the recipe as directed, and be prepared to cook for as long as one hour. If using a wild rice blend, follow the instructions and ratios on the package labels.
Yes you can! Start the recipe as written on the stove, up to the point you add the broth. Then transfer the mixture to a rice cooker, add the broth, bay leaf, and salt, and cook according to the instruction manual. When finished, fluff with a fork, season to taste with salt, and stir in the nuts, fruit, and scallions. You may need to transfer everything to a large bowl for easier mixing. It’s an easy, hands-off method.
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Rice Stuffing
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
- 1 cup onion minced (about 1 medium)
- 1 cup white rice long-grain, jasmine, or basmati (see note 1)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder (see note 2)
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 cup chicken broth or vegetable broth
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup pecans chopped
- 3 green onions sliced, for garnish
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, heat olive oil. Add onion and cook until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in rice, cumin, and curry powder, and cook, stirring frequently, until rice is lightly browned, about 7 to 10 minutes.
- Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broth, bay leaf, and salt, and bring to boil.
- Cover, reduce heat, and cook until rice is tender and all the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 to 17 minutes. Remove bay leaf and fluff with a fork. Stir in cranberries and pecans. Garnish with green onions.
Notes
- White rice: Search out long-grain, jasmine, or basmati rice, but avoid short grain rice (bomba, risotto, sushi) which is too glutinous and sticky for this recipe. If you have your heart set on brown rice, the stuffing will need additional time to cook.
- Curry powder: Not one spice, but actually a blend of a bunch of different spices (including but not limited to: coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger, mustard, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, and chili pepper) Curry powder adds color and flavor to whatever it touches.
- Yield: This recipe makes about 3 cups of rice stuffing total, four 3/4-cup servings.
- Storage: Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days, or freeze up to 3 months.
Nutrition
Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.
This is delicious, a really nice change from plain rice