The first Arabic dish I ever prepared was al kabsa. It came out fantastically well and has become a new favorite. Serve with a fresh salad of mixed lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and carrot, preferably with a little lime vinaigrette. On the side, some warm pita bread would be good. Saudis enjoy their kabsa with a spicy condiment known as shattah. Enjoy!
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 10 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
Ingredients
- ½ teaspoon saffron
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon dried whole lime powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
- ¼ cup butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 (3 pound) whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
- ¼ cup tomato puree
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
- 3 carrots, peeled and grated
- 2 whole cloves
- 1 pinch ground nutmeg
- 1 pinch ground cumin
- 1 pinch ground coriander
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 3 ¼ cups hot water, plus more if needed
- 1 cube chicken bouillon
- 2 ¼ cups unrinsed basmati rice
- ¼ cup raisins
- ¼ cup toasted slivered almonds
Instructions
- Make spice mix: Stir together saffron, cinnamon, allspice, lime powder, cardamom, and white pepper in a small bowl; set aside.
- Make dish: Melt butter in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook and stir onion and garlic in butter until onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Add chicken and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Mix in tomato purée.
- Stir in canned tomatoes with juice, carrots, cloves, nutmeg, cumin, coriander, salt, black pepper, and reserved spice mix. Cook for about 3 minutes; pour in water and add chicken bouillon cube.
- Bring sauce to a boil, then reduce heat, and cover the pot. Simmer until chicken is no longer pink and the juices run clear, about 30 minutes.
- Gently stir in rice. Cover the pot and simmer until rice is tender and almost dry, about 25 minutes; add raisins and a little more hot water, if necessary. Cover and cook until rice grains separate, 5 to 10 minutes.
- Transfer rice to a large serving platter and arrange chicken on top. Sprinkle with toasted slivered almonds.
- Don’t rinse or soak the rice before using it. Depending on the type of rice you use, you may need to use more or less water. Stay on the low side to avoid the dish being too mushy — you can always add more.
- Whole dried limes can be found in Persian groceries or on the internet. Grind them in a spice grinder or blender to make dried lime powder.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 528 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 55 g |
| Cholesterol | 88 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 29 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 423 mg |
| Sugars | 7 g |
| Fat | 21 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Fantastic dish!
made it, and it is so perfect! I love the taste. amazing stuff.
first time making this, I used tumeric instead of saffron, no bullion cube and I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned. it tastes fantastic, very light on the palette. will definitely make again, a wonderful one pot meal!
I followed the recipe almost exactly. Only changes were using dates instead of raisins and I didn’t have any lime powder. We really liked it, but next time will double the spices. Do not leave out the dates/raisins. Those sweet little nuggets complete the dish!
delish, easy to make not too spicy perfect
Amazing! I didn’t have basmati rice so I used long grain rice; I also used chicken breast instead of whole chicken. I did two cups of long grain to three cups of water and it came out so good! Thank you for the outline as this was so easy to accommodate per your personal taste and what you have on hand.
Rave reviews from the family. Didn’t change a thing.
I made the Kabsa spice from scratch with 1 teaspoon of the following: fennel, coriander, ginger, cumin, cardamom, saffron, all meat spice, nutmeg, salt, and black pepper or white. I also cooked the chicken until it had a slight dark burn because I used dark meat thighs. I would do the same if you were cooking the chicken with bones in it. I also only cooked the chicken for 20 before adding the rice. I also added lemon zest to substitute the lime. I added yellow, red, and orange peppers after cooking the chicken with the onion and garlic for a bit. Added 2 fresh Roma tomatoes instead of canned. I would usually add turmeric, but I didn’t have any at the time. The salad to add to the rice: cucumber, tomato, and red onion with salt and pepper to taste and a splash of white vinegar. Some use basalmic vinegar and olive oil in the salad also.
No changes, and it was Delicious!
My own Kabsah tricks: 1- Put fresh peeled and cut tomatoes, carrots, green bell peppers and onions into a blender, to make vegetable juice, and add this on top of the boiled chicken and let them boil till chicken is well cooked, this will enforce the vegetable flavor (use a fine screen to separate chicken and other spices from sauce, so you will end up with clear sauce to cook the rice). 2- Add cut peeled and cooked chestnuts while cooking rice, this will be your mysterious ingredient. 3- After the rise is cooked, light up three or more natural charcoal till they are fully red. fill a bowl with extra virgin olive oil and place it fixed in the middle of the cooked rice (while still in the cooking bowl) after your turn off the heat, open the cook pan lid and place those red charcoals one by one, and after each time, cover the lid to capture the smoke. this will be your second mysterious (NOT HEALTHY) flavor. 4- keep some of the cooking sauce aside to grill the chicken after it is boiled. pre-heat the oven, put chicken in a try, pore some of the sauce on each piece and put the tray in the oven till the sauce dries out, take the tray out, add more sauce and put it back in for couple more times, i do this for around 4 rounds, this will make chicken flavored and juicy. 5- Use whole dried limes, punch each with a knife to allow the sauce in, you can add it again to the clear sauce, and later on top of the serving dish, it tastes awesome when squeezed on rice. 6- garnish with roas
Delicious, although I’ll add more spices and will cook the chicken separately next time.
I live in the Middle East. It didn’t taste that authentic to me. It was just okay. Too much tomato taste.
Solid recipe, but it didn’t really pop for me. Sensing that this was going to be on the bland side anyway, I made a few changes to amp up the flavor. First, I decided to use 3 lb of grilled chicken thighs instead of cooking the chicken in the pot. I made a rub with 1 T kosher salt, 1 T brown sugar, 2 cloves garlic, 1 t black pepper, 1/2 t dried lime powder, and 1/2 t cardamom powder. I grilled the thighs using cherry wood chips for smoke. The grilled chicken came out AMAZING. This meant I could skip the step where the chicken cooks, and go straight to simmering a bit with the spices, and then cooking the rice. The final dish was fairly bland, so I would recommend adding 1/2 t – 3/4 t kosher salt to the hot water before the rice cooks. Depends on how bland or salty you like food. I liked the raisins, but 1/4 C is not nearly enough. I doubled it and that was an improvement. The spice mixture could probably be increased a bit, maybe 25-50%. One final change I’d recommend is if you grill the chicken separately as I did, go ahead and wait until the rice is nearly cooked before adding it.
I made this for my book club when we were discussing The Princess by Jean Sasson. Everyone loved it and it was easy for this non cook. It didn’t get a five because I got confused and added the rice to the chicken and sauce mixture. The rice cooked in the sauce, so it was not ruined, but I was told that the sauce was poured over the rice. When I returned to the site I realized that I misread the recipie.
this was very very good and very easy. I used boneless/skinless chicken thighs. I have Khabsa spice(which is a blend of all the above except for the lime leaf) so I used 3 tsp of it, and a bit extra allspice simply because we love the flavor. added some chick peas. this makes a lot which is great for feeding a group or for leftovers; however i knew this going in based on the amt. of rice. the ratio of liquid to rice was just perfect. The addition of raisins was really nice to get that occasional bite of sweet/savory. thanks for this great recipe.
This recipe is really tasty, and I enjoyed it. I had some friends from Saudi Arabia in college, and when they made it, it was quite different. Same instructions, but they used cumin, maybe one other spice, unlike this one, and there was no carrot.
This was very disappointing dish. It is very bland..blah. No real flavor to the dish Our Saudi exchange students were very disappointed in the lack of flavor as were we since we love middle eastern dishes.
This recipe was excellent and so easy to follow! My husband loves this dish and I have never made it so I chose this recipe and he loved it! Thank you!! Even though I changed some things I still give it 5 stars bc the base recipe is perfect. I made some minor changes based on how my husband likes it. Here’s how I tweaked it: 1) I didn’t use carrots 2) I used dried limes (black limes) instead of lime powder. I used about 10, rinsed with a fork poked in each one – delicious flavor! Found in middle eastern stores 3) I used white raisins not black 4) I used the tiniest bit of ginger and have no idea if it made a difference 5) for all the spices I went off the recipe but my mother in law uses heavy spices so instead of putting a “pinch” of the ones that called for it I put about 1/4 tspn, and for the rest I used the same amt but a heaping amt instead of a flat tspn amt.6) For garnish, I added toasted pinenuts and parsley (I added a picture). Overall everyone that ate it loved it!! I will definitely make this dish again!
This is the easiest to follow recipe I have found for authentic Kabsa. I used pre-made Kabsa spice mix. I also added a handful of frozen peas and substituted pine nuts for the almonds.
Very delicious! I made it for the first time in my life and my wife went crazy over it and wouldn’t stop eating! Thanks a lot.
I am the chef at an international school in Bournemouth (UK) and I tried this recipe for my Arab students and they absolutely loved it, and so did all the others. It is now a favourite.