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Lemon Rice

Lemon Rice
 Lemon rice is an authentic South Indian recipe. It is a great one pot meal which saves you when you are running short of time. Situation: 1. You got up late and you have a meeting on first half
Situation: 2. You are late from office and not in a mood to have out side food. Situation: 3. You have a bowl of leftover rice, don't know what to do with it and you don't want to waste it as well. Situation: 4. Feeling lazy. 
I believe you got enough reasons when lemon rice can rescue you. You need very few ingredients to make a quick-fix lemon rice for breakfast, lunch or dinner. 

Lumchbox recipe Lemon rice

My first introduction with this exotic rice dish happened when I was staying in Chennai college hostel. In our hostel menus were pre-decided according to the days of the week and every Thursday night we had two rice options Lemon rice and coconut rice. I used to prefer lemon rice over coconut rice. But as you know the hostel foods are not good in quality so I used to like it but not love it as the taste was never consistent with all flavours. 

After I left hostel I never had lemon rice until I came down to Bangalore after marriage. After marriage I used to think what to cook for meal which is quick and easy. Because at that time I was not so enthusiastic to cook elaborate meals and I had to go to office. Hence I always used to look for quick one-pot meals. Even now I try quick and easy recipes and my love for one pot meal is not new to my readers. My husband told me one day "why don't you prepare lemon rice and tomato rice? We can have it as breakfast as well as pack for our lunchbox too." He also said he loves these flavourful rice varieties and his landlord aunty often used to prepare for him. Then I remembered this delicacy and was looking for recipe in the internet (No, I was not a food blogger then). 

South Indian Lemon Rice

Initially, I tried lemon rice with store-bought spice pack but did not like the taste. Then I slowly started experimenting and finally I could fine-tune it according to our taste buds. Since then, lemon rice is in our meal menu and now our daughter likes it too. 

You can cook lemon rice with any varieties of raw rice however, I prefer to cook it with basmati long grained rice. Either you can cook rice and prepare it fresh or use leftover rice to give it a makeover. Whenever we have  guests at home and we end up cooking extra rice. Lemon rice is the best way to use up your cooked rice. Preparation time of this dish varies. If you already have cooked rice then it hardly takes 5 minutes for preparation and a whole dish with 15 minutes of time. Sometimes when I run out of peanuts I use cashew nuts instead. Because the nutty flavour makes the lemon rice more exotic. 

Preparation time : 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 to 12 minutes
Servings: 2

Lemon Rice


Cooked/Leftover Rice - 2 cups

Lemon Juice - 1 tablespoon
Onion - 1 medium, sliced
Black Mustard Seeds - 1 teaspoon
Urad Dal - 1/2 teaspoon
Split Gram Dal - 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric Powder - 1 teaspoon
Curry Leaves - 8 to 10
Dry Red Chilli - 1 or 2
Peanuts -2 tablespoon
Green Chilli - 1 teaspoon, chopped
Salt to taste
Refined Oil  - 2 tablespoon


1. Fry the peanuts in oil till they turn brown in colour and keep them aside. 

2. Heat oil in a pan and add curry leaves, dry red chilli, mustard seeds, urad dal, split gram dal. 
3. Once they start crackling add chopped green chilli and sliced onion. Cook until the onions turned translucent.
4. Next add turmeric powder and mix well.
5. Now add cooked rice and mix them well. 
6. Next goes fried peanuts and salt as per taste. 
7. Finally add lemon juice and give a good stir and turn off the gas. Lemon rice is ready to serve.
8. You can also add chopped coriander leaves before serving it.  

Leftover rice Makeover as Lemon rice

