I was talking with a friend recently who was so excited to be finally getting stove in the house that he’s been remodeling and living in. So I asked, “What is the first thing you’re going to cook?” “Rice. Lots of rice.” he replied. Of course. It’s so easy to take simple food for granted. I love simple food because it’s easy to make and subtle flavors are not lost in complicated cooking processes or long ingredient lists.
So, I decided to go back to my roots for this one and prepare a simple yet filling bowl of Yellow Jasmine Rice, quick sauteed spinach, and a hearty egg. It’s awesome. The yellow jasmine rice really makes this recipe special. It’s one of my favorite recipes and I’m happy to be able to use it in a new way.
To make this recipe last throughout the week, I filled single serving containers with the cooked rice, added a scoop of the sauteed spinach and either cooked an egg fresh when I was ready to eat, or I pre-fried an egg and just reheated it all together in the microwave. The reheated bowls that had a pre-cooked egg didn’t have that nice runny yolk that almost acts as a creamy sauce, but they were still delish.
Golden Rice Bowls
golden rice bowls
Servings 6Ingredients
RICE
- 2 Tbsp butter ($0.15)
- 1 small yellow onion ($0.32)
- 2 cloves garlic ($0.16)
- 2 cups uncooked jasmine rice ($0.88)
- 1 tsp turmeric ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin ($0.03)
- 1/8 tsp cinnamon ($0.02)
- 1 whole bay leaf ($0.15)
- 3 cups chicken broth* ($0.27)
SAUTEED SPINACH
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.32)
- 2 cloves garlic ($0.16)
- 16 oz bag spinach ($3.49)
- to taste salt and pepper ($0.05)
OTHER
- 6 large eggs ($1.35)
TOTAL $7.40
Instructions
- Begin the rice first because it will take the longest to cook. Dice the onion and mince the garlic. Saute onion and garlic with butter in a medium pot over medium-low heat until the onions are soft and transparent (3-5 minutes). Add the dry rice, turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon. Stir and cook these ingredients for about 3 minutes more to toast the dry rice and spices. You should hear it crackling a little as it cooks. Make sure to stir often so that the rice does not stick to the bottom of the pot.
- Add the chicken broth and bay leaf to the pot. Place a lid on top and turn the heat up to high. Let the pot come up to a full rolling boil and then turn the heat down to low. Let the pot simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn the heat off and let the pot sit for an additional 20 minutes without removing the lid or stirring the pot. After the final 20 minutes, fluff the rice with a fork.
- When the rice is close to being done, prepare the sauteed spinach. Mince a clove of garlic and add it to a very large pot along with the olive oil. Saute the garlic for 1-2 minutes over medium heat, or just until becomes soft and fragrant. Add the fresh spinach and saute for about 3 minutes, or just until the spinach has wilted. Season the spinach with salt and pepper to taste. Fry six eggs.
- To serve, add about one cup of warm rice to a bowl, add 1/2 cup of the sauteed spinach, and then top it off with a fried egg. Hot sauce adds a nice kick to this dish, too.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
Don’t act like you didn’t see the sriracha coming…
Step By Step Photos
Star with a diced onion and some minced garlic in a medium pot with butter. Saute these ingredients for a few minutes over medium-low heat until the onions are soft and transparent.
Then add the dry rice, turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon.
Stir and cook these ingredients for a few minutes before adding any liquid. This will toast the rice and the spices, which adds more flavor. You should hear the rice crackling and popping a little. Make sure to keep stirring so that it doesn’t burn or stick to the bottom of the pot.
Finally, add the broth and bay leaf. Put a lid on the pot, turn the heat up to high, and let the pot come up to a full boil. As soon as it reaches a full boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer with the lid in place for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn the heat off and let it sit, without removing the lid or stirring, for an additional 20 minutes.
After sitting for 20 minutes with the heat turned off, lift the lid and fluff the rice with a fork.
When the rice is close to finished cooking, start the spinach. Mince a couple more cloves of garlic and saute them in olive oil for 1-2 minutes, or until it just becomes soft and very fragrant. You’ll want to use a very large pot so that you can stir the spinach without it spilling out all over.
I used a large 16 ounce bag of spinach. These large bags of “cooking spinach” are usually a much better deal than the small salad sized bags of spinach. This huge bag will cook down to just a few cups.
Add the fresh spinach to the pot with the garlic and olive oil. Stir and cook for a few minutes or until the spinach is fully wilted. This happens pretty fast. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Fry up six eggs (or soft boil them) and then build your bowls. 1 cup rice, about a 1/2 cup of spinach and one perfect egg.
In my house where there are eggs there is sriracha!
I’ve had this recipe pinned for a while and a CSA box full of greens told me it was to time try it out. Just in case you wondered, it’s delicious with best greens replacing the spinach.
Beet greens. Autocorrect hates me.
Hi! Why is there an asterisk beside the chicken broth?
Thanks for catching that! I always put a note that I use Better Than Bouillon to make my broth because it’s very inexpensive (but still tastes great), so that people know why the price is so low. :) It should be fixed now.
This was amazing! I thought it needed a protein so I added some peppered bacon. I also topped it with franks red hot sauce and lime juice and it was perfection! I’ve done about three of your recipes and have loved them all! Can’t wait to do another.
Oh, my GOSH!! The Golden Rice Bowls are out of this world delicious!! I did follow the recipe to the exact T, but since I wanted to stretch the meal and add some protein, I sauteed some shrimp with butter, garlic, cumin, and smoked paprika. Also, I added some sriracha on the fried eggs (thanks a lot Beth, for having me hooked on sriracha!!). I will definitely make this recipe again, but next time, I’m going to add some chopped chicken breasts AND shrimp!! :-)
I’ve made this twice recently, had a lot of leftover yellow jasmine rice from earlier in the week. I added chicken sausage one time and portobello mushrooms the other, both were SO good, if you love sriracha. The sausage was better, italian added some extra flavor but so simple and quick and not too bad for you. thanks!
I add potato to the rice.
Cooks just as easy.
Made this today and it was so good! Added shrimp to it for some added protein. My fam and I have been munching on it all day! I am hoping there are leftovers for tomorrow o D
I added some shrimp to the rice bowls myself, and it is SO good!! :-)
SO good! I’d made the Yellow Jasmine Rice before on a whim and it was amazing. I wasn’t sure what all to pair it with though (of course I was plenty happy to eat it on its own!!) and then I came across this! So glad I did. I plan on eating my leftovers for every meal for the next couple of days :)
Thank you for being awesome!!
I made this tonight, I often do – but this time I used fresh grated turmeric root. Wow. Try it if you see it around.
I hope I can find some!
Thank you so much for this recipe. My husband and my 3 year old licked their bowls!
i purchased a Curry Madras Powder. Do you think it will taste good?
Yes, it will be like curry rice… sounds delish!
not to be confused with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice
Hi Beth,
This is probably a silly question but I’m a newbie to freezing dishes & I was just wondering how to do it for this particular recipe. Do you just pile the rice, spinach & eggs on top of each other into single serving containers & freeze it all together? Or do you freeze them all seperately? Plus do you have to wait for everything to cool before freezing? Especially the eggs – how long will they stay good when frozen? & how would I re-heat everything? Sorry for the million questions I’m just clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff.
No problem, Sunny! I would portion out the rice and spinach into single serving containers and let them cool in the fridge. Then, once they’re cool, transfer them to the freezer. Reheat them in the microwave and while that’s happening, you can fry a fresh egg to go on top. I hope that helps!
Cooked this for supper. It was really tasty. My 12 year old ate it all…spinach too.
I love this dish and make it frequently! And just FYI, I was short on time and didn’t have fresh spinach last night, so I made it with frozen spinach and Trader Joe’s frozen jasmine rice, and it was still good!
I just sauteed the onions and garlic, then added the spices and cooked for a few, then stirred in the cooked rice. For the spinach, I cooked it according to the package directions, drained it, then sauteed some garlic in olive oil and added the drained spinach and cooked for a couple minutes more. Not quite as good as the original, but great in a pinch!