When I am short on time and need a delicious weeknight meal everyone will love, I cook up a big pot of tehri, a healthy, aromatic, one-pot dish of rice and vegetables. This north Indian dish is easy to make and so delicious.
What is tehri?
The way I see it, tehri (also spelled tahari or tahri) is a cross between India's two most famous rice dishes, pulao and biryani. It's more indulgent than a pulao but not quite as rich as a biryani. It's also a really easy recipe to pull together because it requires little prep other than chopping a few veggies and blending tomatoes.
Tehri is especially popular in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. These are neighboring states, both among the most populated in India, with some commonalities in their cuisines, including a love for rice and root vegetables. You can see that love expressed abundantly in tehri, which includes potatoes and carrots along with other fresh vegetables.
Making a tehri is extraordinarily easy. You don't need to mix up any special masalas - not even garam masala - although you will need a few whole spices, including cloves, cinnamon, green cardamom, bay leaf, peppercorns, cumin seeds and fennel seeds.
You can use almost any veggie of your choice. The ones most used traditionally are cauliflower, potatoes, green peas, green beans and carrots. But bell peppers would be nice here, as would sweet potatoes or even a winter or summer squash.
This is a great meal prep candidate. It can be stored up to five days in the refrigerator and frozen up to three months. Reheat it quickly on the stove or in the microwave and dinner is served!
India is called the world's diabetes capital because large numbers of Indians - nearly 20 percent - suffer from this disease. I don't know any Indian family that doesn't include a diabetic among its members, including my own. The problem can be traced back to India's long love affair with refined, starchy foods like rice. This, however, doesn't mean we have to stop eating rice altogether. Research shows that adding vegetables to rice can help reduce its glycemic effect, making the overall meal healthier. It's all about making the right choices, and foods like tehri can help.
Be sure to check out my other healthy mixed vegetable recipes, including vegetable curry, vegetable korma, vegetable jalfrezi and mix veg paratha.
Recipe card
Tehri recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups raw basmati rice (covered in water and soaked for at least 30 minutes. Drain before using)
- 1 teaspoon avocado oil or any neutral oil
- 2 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 4 cloves
- 4 green cardamom pods (whole)
- 1 bay leaf
- 2-inch stick cinnamon
- 2 teaspoon fennel seeds (saunf)
- 1 large onion (thinly sliced)
- 1 green chili pepper (like japeno or serrano. Leave whole with just a slit down the middle, or, for less heat, split into half, deseed, and then use. You can fish out the peppers before serving)
- 1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 2 medium tomatoes (pureed. Or use 1 cup canned tomato puree)
- 3 medium potatoes (cut in a 1-inch dice)
- 1 large carrot (cut into chunky 1 ½ inch slivers)
- ½ head cauliflower (separated into chunky but bite-sized florets)
- 1 cup green peas (I used frozen, but fresh work too)
- 2 ½ cups vegetable stock (or water)
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot. Add the cumin first, then the cloves, cardamom, bay leaf and cinnamon. Stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds, then add in the fennel seeds and stir quickly.
- Add the onions and saute until they are soft but not brown. You can add a little salt to help this process go faster. Stir in the ginger garlic paste, green chili peppers and turmeric and saute another minute over low heat so the ginger and garlic don't stick to the bottom.
- Add the potatoes to the pot along with the carrots. Add a cup of the water or vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and let the potatoes and carrots cook about five minutes or until fairly tender but not quite done.
- Add the cauliflower and tomato puree and continue cooking the veggies for a couple more minutes. Add the green peas and stir them in.
- Add the remaining water or stock, followed by the drained rice, mix everything well and bring it all back to a boil. Once it looks like the rice has absorbed most of the water, give it all a good stir, cover with a tight-fitting lid, turn the heat to low, and set the timer for 15 minutes.
- Avoid peeking while the rice is cooking, and let it stand, undisturbed, for 10 minutes after cooking. After 10 minutes, open the lid and fluff the grains of rice with a fork before serving.
Notes
- When you cook any rice dish make sure that the water or vegetable stock, before you add the rice to it, is well-salted -- or salted to your preference. The water needs to taste a little saltier than how salty you'd like your dish to be.Â
- Some tehri recipes use tomatoes, others don't. I use tomatoes in mine, but I puree them to help the rice absorb their flavors. If you want to skip a step, you can add your tomatoes, finely chopped, to the pot after you've sauteed the onions and the garlic.
- Cut the veggies in larger chunks and put veggies that take longer to cook in the pot first. That way they will cook evenly and won't fall apart of mush up.
Nutrition Information
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Tehri FAQs
Tehri rice should stay separate and fluffy after cooking, like biryani rice or pulao rice. I recommend basmati rice because its long, aromatic grains have less starch and are not as likely to mush up as shorter grain varieties like sona masoori and ponni rice.
Yes, for the Instant Pot use the saute function for steps 1 to 5. After adding water, place the lid on the Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for five minutes. Let pressure release naturally or release pressure manually after 10 minutes.
Serve tehri with vegan cucumber raita and/or lime pickle. You can also serve it plain, with poppadum.
Zara says
Hi. Besides the option to add salt to the onions to soften faster, when do you add salt? I don’t see that step in the recipe.
Marije says
Hi Vaishali,
Just made this recipe and it was SO very delicious! Save for one lunch portion, we finished the dish between the 3 of us (incl. a 5-year-old). Followed the instructions closely and served, as suggested, with a raita. Perfect.
Thank you so much for sharing your recipes! Now 2 months into eating completely plant based 🙂 I am glad to have found your website when googling 'vegan puttanesca' (also 5 star worthy).
Warm regards from The Netherlands
Vinay says
A very nice recipe easy to follow and delicious results. Thanks
Marije says
Hi!
Just wanted to let you know that this dish was truly very delicious!! I followed instructions and the three of us (including a 5 year old) nearly finished everything (leaving lunch for one ;)! I made a raita on the side and that goes really well with it as you suggested.
I’m eating plant based for two months now and discoverd your site while googling ‘vegan puttanesca’ (which is also 5 star worthy!), so thank you so much for your recipes, I will be trying out many more and keep making the ones I’ve already tried.
Warm regards from The Netherlands!
Ida says
Wow! This recipe is great and it comes together quickly. I used purple barley in place of basmati rice but stuck to recipe otherwise. Very aromatic and oh-so yummy; you cannot go wrong with those ingredients. Thanks for yet another fabulous recipe, Vaishali!
Laura says
This recipe was delicious! It makes a large quantity so we will get several meals out of it.
Vaishali says
So happy you liked it, Laura!
Laura says
I was trying to figure out what was in your ginger garlic paste. The link goes to an onion on Amazon. I found a link in a another recipe and it also went to an onion on Amazon. Is there a recipe for this paste?
Vaishali says
Hi, it's just equal parts ginger and garlic, crushed into a paste with a mortar and pestle or in a food processor.
Anonymous says
Thanks so much!
Laura says
If you are using brown basmati, do you suggest pre-cooking it half way and then adding to the vegetables since it takes longer to cook?
Vaishali says
Yes, cook it to about 70 percent doneness and then add.