Lebanese Rice Pudding (Riz Bi Haleeb)

Lebanese rice pudding known as Riz Bi Haleeb is a fragrant and creamy dessert. This version of rice pudding is vegan using almond milk, sweetened with rice malt syrup and is flavoured with orange blossom water.

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• 🥘 Ingredients
• 🔪Cooking Instructions
• 💭Recipe Tips
• ⏲️Cooking Time
• 📋Other Lebanese Dessert Recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Community

How I love Lebanese Rice Pudding. In Arabic we say Riz Bi Haleeb which translates to Rice With Milk. This is another Lebanese dessert where my mum would leave a little in the pot, brown off the end bit so that my us kids could scoop and scrap it out of the pot. We would fight over the burnt bits.

Riz Bi Haleeb is quite an easy dessert to prepare and is normally eaten cold. It requires only 7 ingredients and very minimal prep time. In under 30 minutes you could have the best rice pudding.

Traditionally Lebanese rice pudding is made with full fat milk and white sugar. However I have been making mine for years with almond milk and rice malt syrup instead of white sugar. The result is a fabulous creamy-ness.

Why I make rice pudding almond milk? I believe almond milk is the most neutral of all plant milks and it's lighter on the belly.

As I was making this rice pudding recipe, it dawned on me that there are quite a few milky Lebanese desserts that are similar. For example, another milky dessert that I shared not long ago called Haytaliyeh vegan Lebanese milk pudding uses similar ingredients (minus rice) but yields a very different result. Haytaliyeh is a solid milky pudding.

🥘 Ingredients

• 1 litre Almond milk - try using the unsweetened variety
• ½ cup White rice - I prefer to use medium grain, but you can use whatever you have in your pantry
• ¾ cup Rice Malt Syrup* - you could sub this for your preferred sweetener
• 2 tbsp Orange blossom water* -  you could sub with Rose water* or use both!
• 1 tbsp Corn starch - this helps to thicken the rice pudding. If you prefer it thicker, add another ½ tbsp
• 1 ¼ cup Water - use filtered water were possible

🔪Cooking Instructions

1. In a pot over medium heat, add rice and 1 ½ cups water. Cook rice until par boiled.
2. On high heat, add almond milk & rice malt syrup to par cooked rice, stir through and bring to the boil.
3. Once boiling, turn heat down to medium and add cornstarch water (pre mix corn stach with ¼ cup cold water) and orange blossom water. Allow to simmer for around 10 minutes. Stirring slowly and continuously.
4. Turn heat to high and allow contents to boil, once thickened. Turn off heat.
5. Pour rice pudding into individual portions and allow to cool at room temperature. Transfer to fridge to chill. Serve cold.

💭Recipe Tips

• You could make rice pudding with leftover rice, simply skip the first step. Rice pudding leftover rice is great as it quickens the cooking process. Just make sure the rice is plain.
• If you are substituting almond milk with oat milk, it's important to note the colour will turn out gray
• Rice malt syrup yields a yellower Lebanese rice pudding.
• Rice malt syrup isn't as sweet as any granulated sugars, so be sure to do a taste test and adjust according to your taste buds
• Pre mix cornstarch in cold water. In this case, add 1 tbsp corn starch to a ¼ cup cold water and mix thoroughly then add into the hot pot. This step will ensure there are no lumps in the vegan rice pudding.
• Allow Riz Bi Haleeb to fully cool down to room temp, before covering with cling wrap and transferring to the fridge
• Garnish with either crush pistachio or cinnamon
• This vegan rice pudding will last for around 5 days in the fridge
• Orange blossom water* or rose water* - I always use a brand I can trust and my family has been using the Cortas brand which is readily available via Amazon in a duo pack. These two flavouring waters are a staple in any Lebanese kitchen and last a long time in the pantry. They are perfect for many dessert applications such as baklawa (Lebanese Baklava) which is a lighter baklava than others from different cultures.

⏲️Cooking Time

Lebanese Rice pudding only takes about 20 minutes over high/medium heat to thicken.

📋Other Lebanese Dessert Recipes

Lebanese are really good at making sweet desserts, here are some of my favourite vegan Lebanese desserts:

• Haytaliyeh vegan Lebanese milk pudding - very similar to vegan rice pudding
• Sfouf Lebanese Turmeric Semolina Cake - A very bright golden cake
• Vegan Meringue with Rose Water - whilst vegan meringue isn't a Lebanese dessert, I have flavoured these with Rose Water which is an iconic Lebanese flavouring.

📖 Recipe