Recipes submitted by Julia M. 

Calculating how much rice to cook is hard. You’re not alone. Those tiny grains turn into a huge pot that could feed an entire city, but you’re dining solo and so most of it goes to the fridge. Then the days pass, and that extra rice from Sunday night is still there, waiting for you to come up with a recipe that’s fresh and yummy even with the leftovers.

Luckily, we got you covered! Here you can pick one rice pudding recipe with cooked rice from the two below, so your leftovers don’t go to waste. How about trying a little twist to your regular nutritious and easy to make rice pudding?

Get ready to cook!

These recipes include two flavors that are everybody’s cup of tea: chocolate and pumpkin. You can’t go wrong with any! Treat yourself with some chocolate rice pudding or with these fantastic pumpkin bars. You won’t have your extra rice in the fridge for long next time!

Chocolate rice pudding (4 servings)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cooked rice.
• 2 cups of milk.
• ½ cup of heavy cream.
• 2 eggs.
• ¼ cup of sugar.
• ½ cup of sweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips.
• ½ tsp. of ground nutmeg.
• 1 tbsp. of unsalted butter.
• 1 tsp. of vanilla extract.
• ¼ tsp. of salt.

Preparation:

1. Take your saucepan to the stove at medium heat and add the cooked rice, the milk, the sugar and the salt. Stir every now and then, until you see the rice is hot and slowly absorbing the liquid.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and add the heavy cream, the vanilla extract and the ground nutmeg.
3. Add the mixture and whisk until well combined.
4. Wait until you see the rice has gotten a creamy texture and there’s no extra liquid around it. Turn the heat off.
5. While adding the butter and the chocolate, stir vigorously to melt them completely.
6. Let it cool down for a while. Some extra chocolate chips will be the perfect topping.

Extra tips:

In the event you can’t make your rice thick enough for your taste, you can dissolve some cornstarch with a small amount of water and add it to your mix. The extra cornstarch will thicken your rice up almost instantly.

You can store your chocolate rice pudding in your fridge for a week. If you freeze your servings, they will last up to 3 months. To defrost them, take them to the fridge overnight. If you want to reheat your rice pudding, a few minutes in the microwave will be fine, or you can put it on the stove at low heat.

Pumpkin rice pudding bars

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cooked rice.
• 3 cups of milk.
• 2 eggs.
• 4 tbsp. of unsalted butter.
• 6 tbsp. of sour cream.
• 9 tbsp. of sugar.
• 1 ½ cups of fresh grated pumpkin.
• 1 tbsp. of cinnamon.
• Salted caramel sauce.
• Oreo cookies
• Butter cookies.

Preparation:

1. Put your rice and milk in a medium pot, add the sugar and set your stove to medium heat. Wait until the rice is thick in texture. Turn the heat off and let the pudding cool down.
2. To prepare the Oreo crust, you’ll need to mix the crushed cookies with softened butter. A food processor will give a more homogeneous texture.
3. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and place the Oreo crust by pressing the paste with a spoon to create an even layer. Take it to the fridge.
4. In a frying pan, put the grated pumpkin with some butter and sugar. Cook until soft and add the cinnamon.
5. Crush the butter cookies and add them to the pumpkin mix to make it crunchier.
6. Take the Oreo crust out of the fridge and place the pumpkin and cookies mix over with a wet tablespoon.
7. Mix the eggs with the sour cream and pour 2/3 on the rice pudding. Spread this rice mix on top of the pumpkin mix in an even layer.
8. Add the remaining sour cream mix to top it all. You don’t want the rice to absorb this thin layer, it will get crusty when baked.
9. Heat the oven at medium heat and bake your layered dessert until the sour cream and egg crust gets a golden color. It takes between 20 to 30 minutes.
10. When it’s done, let it cool down a bit and add some salted caramel sauce on top.