Slow Cooker Rice Pudding Recipe

Three hours on low, one stir in the middle, and no standing over a pot: slow cooker rice pudding is the version of this dessert that finally stopped scorching on me, because the crock never gets hot enough to catch the milk on the bottom the way a saucepan does.

My grandmother made hers in the oven, in a shallow dish, and stirred the skin back in three separate times over two hours. It was wonderful and it was a nuisance. The crock does the same slow, patient job of coaxing starch out of the grains, only it does it unattended while you get on with dinner. A splash of coconut milk goes in with the dairy, which is not traditional at all but gives the finished pudding a rounder, faintly tropical edge that nobody can ever quite identify.

Slow cooker rice pudding rests on two choices that get made before the lid goes on: which rice you use and how much liquid goes in with it. Get those wrong and you end up with soup or with gluey paste, which is why almost every complaint about this dessert traces back to the shopping rather than the cooking.

Can Rice Pudding Be Made in a Slow Cooker?

Yes, and it is arguably the appliance the dish was waiting for. Slow cooker rice pudding works because the dessert wants long, gentle, even heat so the starch has time to leach out into the milk and thicken it. That is precisely what a crock does and precisely what a burner does badly.

The catch is that a slow cooker never boils. Its low setting holds somewhere around 190°F to 200°F, below the boiling point, which is why nothing catches on the bottom and also why it takes three hours rather than forty minutes.

There is one thing to watch. Dairy held at that temperature for hours can separate if the pot is left uncovered, stirred too often, or run on high for the whole time. Low is not the timid option here; it is the only correct one.

Which Rice to Use

This is the choice that decides everything about slow cooker rice pudding. You want a plump grain with plenty of surface starch, because the pudding thickens itself with starch rather than with eggs or cornstarch.

Short-grain and medium-grain rice are the ones to reach for. The USA Rice guide to U.S. rice varieties describes short-grain cooked grains as soft and slightly sticky and medium grains as moist and tender with a tendency to cling, which is exactly the texture a pudding needs. Arborio, sold everywhere for risotto, is a medium grain and works beautifully.

• Short-grain or pudding rice: the ideal, creamy and soft with distinct grains.
• Arborio: the easiest to find, and a touch more toothsome in the middle.
• Long-grain white: workable, but the grains stay separate and the pudding is looser.
• Basmati or jasmine: too aromatic and too low in surface starch. The pudding never thickens properly.
• Instant or minute rice: collapses into mush inside an hour. Avoid it.
• Brown rice: possible, but it needs about six hours and an extra cup of milk.

Rinse the rice briefly and no more. A hard rinse washes away the surface starch you are relying on.

Ingredient Notes

Slow cooker rice pudding runs on seven things, and most of them are already in the door of your refrigerator. Exact quantities are in the recipe card below.

• Whole milk: four cups. Skim and one percent both split more readily and taste thin, since fat is what carries the sweetness here.
• Coconut milk: one cup of the full-fat canned kind, shaken hard first. It adds richness without the heaviness of cream.
• Sugar: half a cup of plain granulated. Brown sugar works and pushes the whole thing toward butterscotch.
• Salt: a quarter teaspoon, and do not skip it. Without salt the pudding tastes flat and oddly chalky.
• Butter: a tablespoon, rubbed around the inside of the crock rather than stirred in.
• Vanilla: stirred in at the end, off the heat, so the alcohol does not cook away.
• Cinnamon: dusted over the top at the table. Ground into the pot at the start it turns everything a muddy gray.

A three to four quart crock is the right size. Anything larger and the shallow layer of milk reduces too fast at the edges.

Why Rice Will Not Cook in a Slow Cooker

Undercooked grains are the most common failure with slow cooker rice pudding, and it almost always has one of four causes.

Not enough liquid. Rice needs roughly five parts liquid to one part grain for a pudding, far more than for a pilaf, because much of the milk thickens rather than being absorbed.

The wrong setting. Some older crocks run cool on low and barely reach 185°F. If three hours leaves the grains chalky, give it another hour or switch to high for the last thirty minutes.

Lifting the lid. Every peek costs about twenty minutes of recovery. Look twice: once at the halfway stir, once at the end.

Something acidic in the pot. Lemon, dried fruit added early, or milk already on the turn will curdle and stall the grains. Add raisins and any citrus at the finish, never at the start.

How To Make Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

Everything goes in cold and at once. Slow cooker rice pudding needs no browning, no tempering and no scalded milk, which is the entire reason it works on a weekday.

1. First, rub the butter thickly around the inside of the crock, right up over the rim. This is what stops the ring of milk skin that otherwise welds itself to the ceramic.
2. Next, rinse the rice for about ten seconds under cold water and shake it dry. Tip it into the crock with the milk, the coconut milk, the sugar and the salt.
3. Then stir once to dissolve the sugar, put the lid on and cook on LOW for 3 hours. Do not be tempted by the high setting.
4. After that, at the ninety minute mark, lift the lid and stir well, scraping around the sides where the rice likes to gather. Replace the lid straight away.
5. At three hours the grains should be tender and the liquid should look like thin cream. It thickens a great deal as it cools, so stop while it still seems loose.
6. Finally, switch the cooker off, stir in the vanilla, and let the pudding stand uncovered for 15 minutes. Spoon it into bowls and dust each one with cinnamon.

Stirring, Skins and Splitting

One stir at the halfway point is right for slow cooker rice pudding. Stirring constantly beats the starch into a gluey paste, and stirring never at all lets the grains settle and clump on the bottom.

If a skin forms across the surface, stir it back in rather than lifting it off; it is milk protein and it melts straight back into the pudding.

Splitting, where the milk goes grainy and watery, comes from too much heat rather than too much time. Low setting, lid on, no acid.

How To Tell When Slow Cooker Rice Pudding Is Done

Two tests, and neither one involves a timer.

Press a grain against the side of the crock with the back of a spoon. It should flatten into a soft paste with no hard white speck at the center. A chalky core means at least another thirty minutes.

Then look at the liquid. Drag the spoon across the surface: the trail should close slowly rather than instantly. If it closes at once, the pudding is still too thin, and if the spoon leaves a clean canyon it has gone too far and wants a splash of warm milk stirred through.

Remember that the finished texture is set by cooling, not by cooking. Slow cooker rice pudding served straight from the crock is always looser than the same batch twenty minutes later, and much looser than it will be cold tomorrow.

Make It Ahead

Slow cooker rice pudding is a genuinely good make-ahead dessert, which is unusual for anything with dairy in it.

Cook it the night before, cool it uncovered for half an hour, then refrigerate it in a sealed container. It thickens to something closer to a set custard, which is how a great many people prefer it.

To serve it warm the next day, stir in a quarter cup of milk per two servings before reheating, because it will have drunk up everything it was given.

You can also measure the dry ingredients into the crock insert the night before, cover it and refrigerate the whole thing. In the morning add the milk and switch it on, and add thirty minutes for the cold start.

Storing Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

1. Refrigerator: up to 4 days in an airtight container. Press a sheet of plastic wrap onto the surface if you dislike the skin.
2. Reheating: gently, in a pan over low heat or in the microwave in thirty second bursts, with a good splash of milk stirred in each time.
3. Freezer: up to 3 months, though the texture turns slightly grainy on thawing. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and beat in warm milk to bring it back.
4. Serving cold: no reheating needed. Cold rice pudding with a spoonful of jam is a legitimate breakfast.

Variations and Substitutions

• Dairy-free: swap the whole milk for a second can of coconut milk topped up with oat milk. Almond milk is too thin on its own.
• Raisins or golden raisins: half a cup, stirred in for the last thirty minutes so they plump without leaching color.
• Cardamom and rose: four crushed pods in the pot and a teaspoon of rose water at the end, which is roughly kheer.
• Orange and bay: a strip of zest and one bay leaf, both fished out before serving.
• Arroz con leche: a cinnamon stick and a strip of lime zest in the pot, and condensed milk in place of the sugar.
• Chocolate: three ounces of chopped dark chocolate stirred in with the vanilla.

What to Serve with Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

Slow cooker rice pudding needs nothing alongside it, but a little contrast in texture or acidity goes a long way against all that softness.

• Stewed rhubarb, roasted plums or a spoonful of tart cherry jam.
• Toasted flaked almonds or crushed pistachios, for the crunch it otherwise lacks.
• A drizzle of maple syrup or dark honey instead of extra sugar in the pot.
• Coffee, and something from the same slow cooker family such as crockpot steak and potatoes earlier in the evening.

Here is what readers ask most often.

Slow Cooker Rice Pudding FAQ

More Questions About Rice Pudding

Once you have the ratio and the low setting fixed in your head, slow cooker rice pudding turns itself out on a Tuesday without any thought at all. For another slow, custardy pudding built on stale bread rather than rice, try my persimmon bread pudding, or go the stovetop route with a classic homemade vanilla pudding.

Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

Short-grain rice, whole milk and a cup of coconut milk cook gently in the crock for three hours until the grains are soft and the liquid has thickened itself into a creamy pudding. Vanilla goes in at the end and cinnamon goes over the top.

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 3 hours hrs

Total Time 3 hours hrs 5 minutes mins

Servings 6 servings

Author Nayla

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Ingredients

 

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For the Pudding

• ▢ 3/4 cup short-grain white rice arborio or pudding rice, rinsed briefly
• ▢ 4 cups whole milk
• ▢ 1 cup full-fat coconut milk canned, shaken well
• ▢ 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• ▢ 1 tablespoon unsalted butter for greasing the crock

To Finish

• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon for dusting

Equipment

• ▢
  Slow cooker
• ▢
  wooden spoon
• ▢
  Measuring cups
• ▢
  Measuring spoons
• ▢
  Serving plates or bowls

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

 

Fill the Slow Cooker

1. First, rub the butter thickly around the inside of the slow cooker insert and right up over the rim. This is what stops a ring of milk skin welding itself to the ceramic.
2. Next, rinse the rice under cold water for about ten seconds and shake it dry. Tip it into the crock with the whole milk, the coconut milk, the sugar and the salt, and stir once to dissolve the sugar.

Cook It Low and Slow

1. Then cover and cook on LOW for 3 hours. Do not use the high setting, which brings the dairy close to a simmer and makes it separate.
2. After that, at about the 90 minute mark, lift the lid once and stir well, scraping around the sides where the grains gather. Replace the lid straight away, because every peek costs roughly 20 minutes.

Finish and Serve

1. At 3 hours the grains should flatten to a soft paste when pressed against the side of the crock, with no chalky speck at the center, and the liquid should look like thin cream.
2. Finally, switch the cooker off and stir in the vanilla. Let the pudding stand uncovered for 15 minutes, during which it thickens a great deal, then spoon it into bowls and dust each one with cinnamon.

Notes

Rice: short-grain or medium-grain white rice, including arborio, gives the creamiest result. Basmati and jasmine are too low in surface starch, and instant rice collapses.

Rinsing: ten seconds only. A long rinse strips the starch that thickens the pudding.

Setting: low the whole way. High pushes the dairy close to a simmer, which is what makes milk separate into grains and water.

Texture: the pudding thickens a great deal in the twenty minutes after the cooker goes off, so stop while it still looks too loose.

Dairy-free: use a second can of full-fat coconut milk topped up with oat milk in place of the whole milk.

Storage: up to 4 days refrigerated. Reheat gently with a splash of milk stirred in, or eat it cold.

Nutrition values are an estimate.

Nutrition

Serving: 1bowl | Calories: 340kcal | Carbohydrates: 52g | Protein: 8g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 20mg | Sodium: 160mg | Potassium: 300mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 30g | Vitamin A: 198IU | Vitamin C: 0.3mg | Calcium: 171mg | Iron: 1mg

Nayla

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