Arroz con Coco (Colombian Coconut Rice)

Savory and sweet Arroz con Coco is a wonderfully flavorful Colombian Coconut Rice side dish that you will soon find yourself addicted to! 

Coconut Rice

Variations of coconut rice can be found in many tropical regions around the world, including India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Latin America, and more.

Many versions of coconut rice are prepared by simply cooking white rice in coconut milk, creating rice with a unique, slightly sweet flavor. Sometimes the rice is seasoned with sweet accompaniments (like ginger or sugar) and other times it is made more savory (with salt and onions).

In some countries coconut rice is served as a side dish to a main seafood or chicken dish. In other countries coconut rice is much sweeter and takes more of a dessert status.

Arroz con Coco

Today we’re looking at the Colombian version of coconut rice. While you will find “white” coconut rice (arroz con coco blanco) in Colombia, that is prepared in a similar way to the coconut rice dishes we talked about above, the most popular version of Colombian coconut rice is a darker version.

You will find arroz con coco mixed with raisins for a sweeter preparation, or left without raisins for a more savory preparation that is most commonly served with fish.

How to Make Coconut Rice

What makes Colombian coconut rice different from “white” coconut rice is that the rice is not cooked in the coconut milk.

Rather, the coconut milk is cooked down until it reduces to coconut solids and coconut oil. The coconut oil lightly fries the coconut solids, creating a sweet, toasted coconut mass and highly flavored coconut oil.

This mixture is what you add your dry rice to.

The rice gets coated with these toasted coconut solids and flavorful coconut oil, which infuses it with a slightly sweet and toasty flavor as it cooks.

As you’re making the rice, you may wonder if all the work is worth it. But, the flavor of the end result is OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Our Experience With Arroz con Coco

Honestly, as we were making this dish, we DID wonder if all the effort would be worth it.

Reducing the coconut milk took us about an hour. AND THEN we had to cook the rice.

It was definitely a labor of love.

By the time we sat down to eat we were both ravenous and ready to be done with this silly coconut rice.

And then we took a bite.

And another.

The look on both of our faces as we tasted a combination of sweet and savory, toasted and subtle flavors that we had never experienced before must have said it all.

The effort was SO worth it.

And we’ll be making this rice again and again.

(We’ll just plan better next time for the time it takes to reduce the coconut milk.)

Choosing Coconut Milk For Arroz Con Coco

One important thing to note when making arroz con coco is which coconut milk you choose.

You need to find full fat coconut milk without any stabilizers (crystalline cellulose or xanthan gum), if possible. Since our goal is to separate the coconut milk into solids and fat, we don’t want these stabilizers keeping our coconut milk from separating.

That being said, we couldn’t find coconut milk without any trace of a stabilizer, so ours did contain guar gum, but it still separated fine.

If your coconut milk does have stabilizers though, don’t worry. All you have to do is add 2 Tbsp of oil (coconut or canola) to the pan once the coconut milk has reduced to its solids. This will mimic the same toasting effect that the separated coconut milk does naturally.

Careful Adding Your Water!

We can’t end without one final note of warning.

BE CAREFULLY ADDING YOUR WATER!

Ok?

As you saute your coconut solids, you are basically frying them. And, the frying temperature of oil is MUCH higher than the boiling temperature of water.

That means that when you add the water to your rice mixture it is going to steam and sputter like CRAZY!

So, add the water carefully and then stand back!

And get ready to enjoy something incredibly delicious!