Portuguese Rice Pudding, Arroz Doce, is a traditional Portuguese dessert recipe made with rice, sugar, milk, eggs, cinnamon, and lemon peel.
The holidays are quickly approaching! I love this time of year, and now that I have kids all of the traditions surrounding the holidays mean even more to me. There are so many things that I, as a Portuguese-American, grew up with that I can’t wait to share with them. This fall I learned how to make homemade Portuguese sausage, and now that my parents are back from a long visit to Portugal I’ve been having my mom come over to teach me some more of her recipes.
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Some of our traditional Portuguese Christmas recipes are homemade chourico, caldo verde soup, shrimp turnovers and arroz doce, Portuguese rice pudding. I didn’t actually get my arroz doce recipe from my mom, my aunt is the one who always makes it, but when I tried out her recipe for the first time this week my mom came over to do a little quality assurance testing for me. If there is one thing you can count on it is my mom being honest about how a recipe turned out!
It was a lot easier to make than I thought it would be. I deviated from the norm a little (you knew I would didn’t you?), my aunt usually uses a short grain rice but I used jasmine rice, which is a long grain rice, instead and I loved the difference the long grains of the jasmine rice made in the texture. The recipe is a simple mixture of cooked rice, sugar, milk, eggs, and lemon peel. My favorite part is the topping. Traditionally arroz doce is topped with a cinnamon design, usually in a lattice pattern. I played around with mine a little and used a damask stencil that I have. I think it turned out so pretty!
The key is to get it as close to the top of the rice pudding, leaving little to no room between the stencil and pudding. This will give you a sharper looking image with the cinnamon.
So I know you’re all wondering, did it pass the mom test? Look at that smile! That’s the mom stamp of approval! She said it was some of the best rice pudding she has had :). I can’t wait to share the tradition with my kids this Christmas and hopefully teach them how to make it some day too!
- 1 cup Jasmine Rice or Short Grain Rice
- 2 cups Water
- 2 cups Hot milk whole preferred
- 1 cup Sugar
- 2 Egg yolks
- 1 Lemon rind
- 1 tablespoon Butter
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- Pinch of salt
- Cinnamon optional
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Cook rice with salt according to the package instructions.
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Add hot milk, sugar, butter, vanilla, egg yolks, lemon rinds to the cooked rice and stir.
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Simmer for 15-20 minutes covered until you reach an oatmeal consistency.
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Divide rice pudding into dishes and let cool.
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If you use cinnamon add the cinnamon design when rice is room temperature
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Serve or store in refrigerator until needed
Ok, I shared one of my traditional recipes with you, tell me about one of your favorite traditional holiday recipe in the comments!
Shelby says
I think it is wonderful you are learning your mom’s recipes. I do this with my mom and just did it yesterday with her baking powder biscuits! Its something you will truly cherish. BTW, sounds delicious and looks beautiful!
Melinda says
Shelby, I wish I had started doing this years ago. You never realize how important these things are until you get older.
Ruth Padilla says
Capidotada(Bread pudding)-preheat oven to 375′
I loaf sliced French bread
1/2c raisins
1/2c hopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 box dark brown sugar
1c Schredded Colby cheese
1c chopped Fuji Apple
1c water
1c milk
1tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Toast & butter your bread set aside, in a pot bring water milk, raisins,cinnamon,nutmeg & brown sugar to a boil and turn off-add sugar to your taste
In a deep baking dish – alternate layers bread slices with apples, raisins,cheese should make 4 layers of the bread push down now pour your sauce over the layers of breads pushing to soak up the sauce-
Bake in preheated oven for 45 mins till you see it bubbling
Katherines Corner says
rice pudding is one of my favorite things! Thank you for sharing at the Thursday Favorite Things blog hop. Watch for your feature tomorrow xo
Kat says
Thanks Katherine!
Dorothy Boucher says
This is such a good tasting rice pudding, miss my mom making this for me 😉
Dulce Solt says
Me too! I am going to try it tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it came out.
Kat says
Please do! I hope you love it as much as I do 🙂
plasterers bristol says
This sounds delicious, classip british pudding. Thanks for sharing.
Simon
Elsie Altomonte says
Thanks for this recipe. It’s awesome. I’ve tried many different versions and this one was by far the easiest and fastest and reminds me most of my mothers.
Thank you so much!
Melinda says
Elsiea, so glad you enjoyed it.
Jo says
Arroz Doce is NOT made with Jasmine Rice!!!!!
Kat says
Feel free to use your rice of choice it is delicious!
Mary Roberts Romero says
I use pearl or calrose rice. I par boil my rice til wate4 boils down add hot half and half and heavy cream that i pre scald then add to rice with butter simmer til rice cooked add sugar than beat3. eggs and add with vanilla and simmer 5 minutes i
Melinda says
My mom uses the least expensive rice she can find.
mary says
thank you so much will be trying it for this Easter Sunday..my mom use to make this all the time ..missing her these days..
Diane says
I just made this and I have to say I am disappointed. Why would you add vanilla and lemon rind? Vanilla is very strong and cancels out the lemon flavor. I should have used my better judgement before putting the vanilla in… you should try it without the vanilla, much better. Other wise it’s a good recipe
Brileigh says
I think the vanilla is key to Portuguese rice pudding the thing throwing off this recipe is the jasmine rice which I had in my cabinet so I used it… i should’ve used a different rice for the recipe and the lemon rind I think I’m going to Use lemon juice next time because it just tastes like rice in a sweet milky sauce I hope once it sits the rice will ferment with all the flavors and taste like it’s supposed to!
Melinda says
The lemon rind it traditionally used. I prefer jasmine rice but any rice can work.
Kelena says
Aloha!
Coming from Hawaii Portuguese traditions of the Açores. And are mix of other Asian ethnicities. Call me a traditionalist we’ve always used short grain Japanese rice, or italian Aborio rice like for risotto. Not a fan of long grain rice outside of those dishes were there culturally correct like Chinese for fried rice about the best to do with long grain the next day.
Personally I find long grain rice is not glutinous enough to provide the creamy mouth texture of the stickier short grain varieties.
But JMO. You pics really look good. Obrigado!
Linda says
I’m confused on how you want the lemon rind used. The whole rind, and do you want it shredded?
Melinda says
Linda, you cook the rind along with the rice so it gives it flavor. Keep it in bigger pieces so it is easier to remove. Discard the rinds after it cooks.
Linda Juliot says
My yolk kind of clumped, did I do something wrong?
Melinda says
Did you stir as soon as you added the egg yolk? The mixture may of been too hot and ended up cooking the yolk. I suggest stirring while adding the ingredients and try warm milk instead of hot. Also, may be add the yolk last.
azoreseuropa says
I put alot of cinnamon on it. Awesome.
CHIPILIRO MMEMO says
MMMMMMMMMM ITS DELICIOUS MADE BY AN AMERICAN LADY RECIPE FOR THE PORTUGUESE AND TRIED BY A MALAWIAN WOW IT TASTE GOOD REAL GOOD
Cory Vieira says
It’s my dad’s birthday and I made this for him instead of getting a cake and it came out great! I used half white sugar half brown sugar and it gave it great flavor. Thanks for the recipe he loved it! Portuguese approved!
Melinda says
Portuguese approved is all that matters, LOL 🙂
Thomas says
If you wish to double the recipe, do you cut back on anything? For example amount of water if you cook two cups of rice?
Melinda says
I would not suggest doubling everything. I would make 2 separate batches.
Beverly says
My sons father is Portuguese and I try my best to incorporate these dishes into my household. My family is very mixed nd I believe in old values old traditions and recipes. Instilling that into my children is very important. So from his father and our son Portuguese approved????????????????♥️ Also another great recipe which is super easy and my children love is Portuguese Bolo de Bolacha “Cookie Cake” Mmmm to die for. God Bless Enjoy!!
Melinda says
Beverly, love hearing this.
Elizabeth Nichols says
I’m attempting this for my family gathering tomorrow.
Talking rice pudding to a brunch, sounds good to me!
Carla R. says
The Jasmin rice my Safeway had had “thai fragrance” which made me weary to use it. Since Jasmin rice is long grain rice, I just bought regular long grain rice (I could not find short grain rice to save my life). It tasted great, but I found that once it cooled, the rice seemed hard, although it was thoroughly cooked. When I tasted it before it cooled (because I just HAD to), the rice was soft. Could that be because of the rice I used? Other than that, it was delicious.
Melinda says
Carla, as it cools it gets thicker and the rice does get more stiff. That is completely normal. Rice will get more stiff as it cools, even in a sauce.