Creamy vegan rice pudding that tastes like a delicious custard! Divine served with a sprinkle of cinnamon either hot or cold.
This vegan rice pudding tastes just like creamy custard!
Seriously, even if the words rice and pudding don’t sound like they should go in the same sentence, you’ll be a convert once you try this.
It’s made with coconut milk for a really rich and delicious pudding. It’s extremely simple, but takes a while to cook as you’re basically turning grains of rice into creamy custard, so it cooks for around an hour in total.
So it’s not super quick, but it is absolutely delicious. You can also serve it hot or cold, so the batch of rice pudding that you make today can be your puddings for the week!
And if you love this vegan rice pudding then you’ll also love our vegan vanilla pudding and vegan chocolate pudding.
Vegan Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk
Coconut milk creates such a rich and delicious rice pudding, I highly recommend it.
You might be a little shocked by the amount of coconut milk that goes into this (4 cans) and the relatively small amount of rice (¾ cup) but it works!
Yes you do have to cook it for a long time, but at the end of it, you have a thick and rich and delicious custardy pudding.
It doesn’t taste like rice in the sense that you don’t taste individual grains of rice, the whole thing is really more like custard than anything else.
How To Make Vegan Rice Pudding
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Add basmati rice, coconut milk, water, white granulated sugar, light brown sugar and salt to a large pot and bring to the boil stirring regularly.
- Turn the heat right down so that it is on a slow simmer, cover the pot and let it cook for around 50 minutes, stirring at regular intervals, until it is the consistency of a thick, creamy custard.
- Add vegan butter and vanilla extract and stir in.
- Your rice pudding is ready to serve.
Chef’s Tips
Use a really big pot. You’re making a big batch of rice pudding here (it serves 6) and you want the volume of your pot to be around double the volume of your pudding when you start cooking it. The initial volume is around 2 liters (half a gallon), so you need your pot to be able to hold around 4 liters (1 gallon).
This is because you’re boiling milk – yes it’s coconut milk, but all milk acts the same way. And you know what happens when you boil milk, that stuff foams up like crazy.
You do need to still keep a close eye on the pot – I pulled up a chair and read my book while this was simmering away – but if your pot is big enough the chances of it boiling over are very small.
Turn the heat right down. Once you’ve brought it to the boil, you need to turn the heat right down, as low as possible that will still keep it simmering. You want to be able to cover the pot and let it simmer without it foaming up too high (even with a big pot, this is still important!).
Stir it at regular intervals. Give it a stir at regular intervals. You’ll know it’s ready when it’s super thick and tastes like custard. From the moment it boils and you turn it down to simmer and cover the pot, it takes about another 50 minutes of simmering to reach the right texture and thickness.
Serve it with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Raisins and fresh fruit are also popular add-on’s. I prefer it quite plain with just a sprinkle of cinnamon and maybe nutmeg, but you can also really fancy it up with some vegan whipped cream or a drizzle of maple syrup.
Storing Tips
This makes around 6 cups of rice pudding. So either enjoy it all right away if you have a big family or divide it into portions, cover, and keep them in the fridge and you have puddings for days!
It will keep in the fridge (covered) for up to 1 week.
More Vegan Pudding Recipes
- Vegan Bread Pudding
- Mango Chia Pudding
- Vegan Peach Cobbler
- Vegan Malva Pudding
- Vegan Sticky Toffee Pudding
- Chocolate Chia Pudding
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Rice Pudding
Ingredients
- ¾ cup Basmati Rice (150g) Dry Weight
- 6 ⅔ cups Canned Coconut Milk (1600ml, 4 cans) Full Fat, Unsweetened
- 1 cup Water (240ml)
- ¼ cup White Granulated Sugar (50g)
- ¼ cup Light Brown Sugar (50g)
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 Tablespoons Vegan Butter (30g)
For Serving:
- Sprinkle of Cinnamon
Instructions
- Add the basmati rice, coconut milk, water, white granulated sugar, light brown sugar and salt to a large pot and bring to the boil stirring regularly.
- Turn the heat right down so that it is on a slow simmer, cover the pot and let it cook for around 50 mins, stirring at regular intervals, until it is the consistency of a thick, creamy custard.
- Stir in the vanilla extract and vegan butter and serve either hot or cold with a sprinkle of ground cinnamon.
Video
Notes
- It’s very important that you use a large pot, so that it doesn’t boil over. Keep the heat very low once you reach the slow simmer point.
- I used full fat coconut milk from the can, but if you wanted to switch for a light coconut milk that should be fine.
- Keep leftovers stored in the fridge (covered) for up to 1 week.
this is probably a dumb question, but do you cook the rice first or no??
Hi Mimi, no you don’t cook it first.
Hi Alison,
Thank you for sharing the recipe. I would love to try it but I’m wondering what is the substitution of the vegan butter? It’s very difficult to find it here in Saudi Arabia.
Thank you again
Hi Zainab, if you can get any dairy-free margarine that would be great to use, otherwise you can make a homemade vegan butter with coconut oil. Alternatively you can leave it out, it’s not crucial. All the best! 🙂
In Norway, this is a staple around christmas 🙂
In my house, we usually use half soy and half coconut milk, and what we call “grøtris” or porridge rice, which is basically the same as sushi rice. Then we top it with cinnamon, sugar and a little bit of butter in the middle. Some even like to use raisins in it.
Sounds delish! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I used a quarter of the ingredients and it was still fairly large but so tasty that I ate it all in one sitting! For interest sake, using a little more vanilla takes the coconut taste away, (I’m not so keen on a coconut flavour either), but doesn’t detract from this super and easy rice pudding. Brings back memories of my mother’s rice puddings – so happy to have this vegan and gluten free recipe. Thanks Alison!
So happy to hear this Anna! Thanks so much for the great review. xoxo
Made it and LOVE it.. My hubby loves it, made lots of Mmmm noises and went back for seconds 😉 Thank you for bringing rice pudding back into our lives :))) xxx
Awesome! So glad it worked out! Thanks so much for updating us and the great review! xo
Hi Alice!!!
Was wondering is your coconut milk the canned ones, or can I use KOI coconut milk (beverage ones)?
Oh shoot, sorry Alison, typo 🙁
Haha no worries! Yes, it’s the full fat canned (and also unsweetened) version. I’m sure you can use a different type, but it likely won’t be as rich.
I haven’t made this yet, but it looks like there’s a problem with the math. 4 cans (400 ml) makes 1600 ml, not 1200. I’d like to make this but I want to be sure. Both figures can’t be right. Thanks.
Oh shoot! Yes, there was definitely a typo there! Thanks so much for pointing it out, it’s now fixed. It is definitely 4 (400ml) cans, always was 4 cans, don’t know how I got 1200 ml in my head but once I did it clearly just stuck there, haha! Thanks again. 🙂
Do you use full fat coconut milk or reduced fat?
I used full fat, but reduced fat would be totally fine to use as well.
I’d like to try this but I only have one tin of coconut milk! Do you think it would be ok to reduce the other ingredients so I could make a small portion to start with??
Hi Kathryn! I ‘think’ so! You would need to make quarter of the recipe in that case. I think it might get to the custardy stage faster since you are working with much less quantity, but I’m not exactly sure, just see how it goes! All the best! 🙂
This is amazing! I LOVE rice pudding so this really hit the spot. Loved it.
Awesome Sandra! So happy you liked it. Thanks for posting! 🙂
I read somewhere that if a wooden spoon is placed on top across the milk won’t boil over. Didn’t try it yet. Maybe I do now.
Oh, I haven’t tried that, but that’s interesting!
This looks so good – I bet a sliced banana would top it off so well (and some vegan ice cream). Initially I laughed at the claim that it serves 6 (I’m greedy) but I suppose the 4 cans of coconut milk would make for a rather filling pudding!
Thanks for the note about using a big pot. Non-cooks such as myself need tips like this.
Hi Caroline! Yes, sliced banana would be great and vegan ice cream is always a yes! Hahaha, yes serving sizes are very subjective, but it does make a fairly big portion. 🙂
Hi Alison, perhaps try it with shortgrain rice pudding rice or risotto Arborio rice, as probably will need much less cooking time, and much less coconut milk… just a suggestion. This is what we do in the UK, but not sure if shortgrain rice is available in SA, although it should be… 🙂 Bye for now…
Hi TJ, basmati rice is a very quick cooking rice, the reason for cooking it so long is to turn it from ‘rice’ to more of a custard texture. I think short grain rice could be used, but the recipe would be the same. 🙂
Using short grain rice is how it is made in Thailand. A different friend of mine in Germany makes hers with day old rice of any sort. Planning on using half canned coconut milk and half chocolate Silk “milk”. Thank you for the recipe!
That sounds like a good plan! Hope it works out great! 🙂
Can you halve the vegan rice pudding recipe?
Hi Kay, I’m sure you can.
Weird question… Does it taste coconutty? I can’t stand coconut but really miss rice pudding! TIA ????
Hi Mollie, it probably does! I don’t notice it strongly, but I like coconut. I think you could use a different plant milk instead if you dislike coconut. 🙂
Hi Alison, that’s fab I’ll try oat milk instead! Thank you x