Sambar rice
Preparation Time
8 minutes
Cooking Time
30 minutes
Difficulty Level
easy
Meal Type
Lunch
Serves 4
Key Ingredients
- Toor dal (arhar)
About This Recipe
Sambar rice, called sambar sadam in many Tamil homes, is rice and toor dal cooked together with vegetables, tamarind and sambar masala until everything falls soft. A full sambar and plain rice are cooked separately, but this is the one-pot version weekday cooks reach for: one pressure cooker, one tempering, and the lunch is ready as a single pot.
The dal-to-rice ratio here is 1:2, one part toor dal to two parts rice, which keeps the pot soft without turning it into khichdi. The grains should still hold their shape under a light mash. Tamarind gives the tang, so it is added as strained juice, never as whole pulp, and the vegetables stay in small pieces so they soften in the same time as the grains.
Cooked rice works too: make the sambar part with the dal, vegetables and tamarind, then fold in two cups of cooked rice at the end and let the pot stand for five minutes. Swap the vegetables for whatever is in the fridge; drumstick, brinjal, shallots and pumpkin all cook well here. Use sambar masala from the shop, or a spoon of coriander powder with a little extra chilli.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Rice and dal
- Sona masoori rice — 1 cup
- Toor dal (arhar) — 1/2 cup
- Tamarind pulp — 15 g
Vegetables
- Onion, finely chopped — 1 piece
- Carrot, diced — 1 piece
- Green beans, cut into 1 cm pieces — 8 pieces
- Sambar masala — 2 tbsp
Tempering
- Ghee (1 tbsp for the tempering, 1 tbsp to serve) — 2 tbsp
- Mustard Seeds — 1 tsp
- Cumin Seeds — 1 tsp
- Hing (asafoetida) powder — 1/4 tsp
- Curry leaves (fresh, or a few dried) — 1 sprig
- Dried red chillies — 2 pieces
To finish
- Salt — 1 1/2 tsp
- Hot water — 4 1/2 cups
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Serving Suggestions
Serve hot with a roasted papad, a lime wedge and a bowl of curd or raita; a little pickle on the side is the classic pairing. For a packed lunchbox, cool the pot fully, pack it with the papad left out, and eat it at room temperature. Leftovers keep up to two days in the fridge and loosen with a splash of hot water when reheated.
Tips for Cooking Sambar rice
The tamarind sets the tang: 15 g gives a balanced pot, so hold a little back and taste before adding it all. Mash lightly at the end, not to a paste, so the rice keeps some texture. The pot thickens fast as it cools, so keep a cup of hot water ready. Salt goes in with the vegetables, before pressure cooking, so the whole pot is seasoned through.
Chef’s Note
Toor dal is the base of this pot, cooked soft with the rice in a single go. The ghee tempering of mustard, cumin, hing and curry leaves goes in first, so its flavour runs through every spoonful. A serving comes to about 340 kcal with 9.5 g of protein, most of it from the dal and rice together.
Per serving (approx.): 340 kcal, protein 9.5 g, carbs 56 g, fat 8.2 g, fibre 3.9 g. Computed from IFCT 2017 / USDA values for the listed quantities. Measures: 1 cup = 240 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml.
Happy Cooking
!!
ByCOWBERRY
Apr 17, 2026
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