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Old Fashioned Glorified Rice is a creamy dessert with marshmallows, strawberries, pineapple… and rice! A unique no-bake recipe for summer picnics.
Have you ever heard of “glorified” rice? It’s a sweet, dessert-style rice dish that is a classic, old-fashioned style recipe. Normally when I think of rice, my mind immediately goes to savory recipes, creamy recipes with butter, garlic and cheese.
Today’s recipe is a game changer, though. A reinvention of rice. Because…why not rice for dessert? This pantry staple should get to enjoy the sweeter side of life, too!
This Glorified Rice recipe comes from my old Mennonite cookbook. The cookbook that I run to when I’m craving serious comfort food. It has simple pantry ingredients like pineapple tidbits and mini-marshmallows and then chopped strawberries to add a hint of fresh and a pop of color.
The base of this recipe, however, is the rice. Alessi Arborio Rice. Have you ever heard of this type of rice? Italians developed a special way of cooking rice with other ingredients, which results in the classic “risotto” dish I’m sure you know and love. Arborio rice is the key ingredient in risotto.
Arborio rice retains its firmness when cooked and absorbs flavors well, which makes it the perfect rice for risotto. And also the perfect rice for this recipe!
Here’s why. You’ll cook the arborio rice ahead of time in water with a touch of butter. The arborio will absorb the flavors of that butter while it cooks, giving it a rich, smooth taste.
Once the rice is cooled and you add the fruit, marshmallows, sugar and whipped cream, it will combine to create the most delicious rice dessert recipe you ever did taste. The smooth arborio combined with the sweet fruit and cream almost reminded me of cheesecake. Yes, it’s that good.
I invite you to get creative with this recipe! What fruit would you add in? This is our favorite combination, but we’ve also added mandarin oranges, mango, apple and even banana slices. Feel free to use plain white mini marshmallows, but aren’t those colored ones so fun?
Q: Have you ever heard of glorified rice? What fruit would you add?