Cooking Vegetarian: 2,600+ Recipes

Pushpanna, the royal rice pilaf of Bengali cuisine, is celebration food — basmati cooked with saffron and turmeric, then buried under fried chenna pieces, almonds, cashews, pistachios, coconut ribbons, and raisins. Every element is fried in ghee separately and layered...

Zesty lemon pepper rice is the fastest fancy side in your repertoire — twenty minutes from cupboard to table. Basmati simmers with a bay leaf, then gets hit with butter, coarsely cracked black pepper, and a generous squeeze of lemon. It wakes up everything on the...

One-pan panir pilaf with zucchini and tomatoes is weeknight cooking with weekend flavor. Curry leaves, cardamom, and mustard seeds sizzle first, then panir, zucchini, and rice build in the same pan, each in its turn. Fewer dishes, full flavor — my favorite kind of...

Paneer pilaf with bell peppers (panir simla mirch pulau) is a one-pot showpiece: brown Calmati basmati simmered with tomatoes and whole spices, then loaded with panir and diced peppers. The cheese browns outside, stays milky inside, and turns a rice dish into dinner....

Rice pilaf with crunchy fried badis and green beans (badi barbatti pulau) is everyday Gujarati home cooking at its coziest. Moong dal badis — sun-dried lentil dumplings — fry until they crunch like croutons, tucking themselves among green beans and turmeric-yellow...

Sweet saffron rice (zarda pulao) is dessert masquerading as dinner — gilded basmati sweetened with jaggery, perfumed with cardamom, and showered in pistachios, almonds, and plump raisins. A pinch of salt keeps it from tipping into cloying. Festivals, celebrations, or...

Savory saffron pilaf (kesar pulau) turns a pinch of good saffron into a golden, perfumed pot of basmati. Cashews, ginger, and green chili keep it lively, with slivers of bell pepper for color. It is the rice you make when the meal matters. There's something truly...

Fragrant toasted coconut rice (nariyal ki chaval) perfumes the whole kitchen before it even reaches the table. Fresh coconut strips fry in ghee or coconut oil until their edges turn golden, then cumin and mustard seeds join, and the basmati follows. Simple...

Creamy potato coconut rice (aloo pulau) is a pilaf unlike any other — raw julienned potatoes cook right in the pot with the basmati and turn impossibly silky. Toasted coconut, ginger, and green chili run through it, with a cooling spoonful of yogurt on top. Trust the...

Ultimate South Indian yogurt rice — thayir sadam — is cool, creamy, and endlessly calming. Soft rice is folded through plenty of plain yogurt, seasoned with ground ginger and black pepper, then hit with a sizzling mustard-seed and curry-leaf tadka. Shredded raw green...

Creamy yogurt rice (dahi bhat) is India's original summer comfort — cooling, soft, and ready in the time it takes rice to cool down. Warm grains are mashed a little, then folded through yogurt or buttermilk with ground ginger and salt. A last-second sizzle of...

Classic South Indian lemon rice, or chitranna, is the best thing that ever happened to leftover rice. Cold grains get tossed through a turmeric-yellow tempering of mustard seeds, urad dal, and cashews, then finished with fresh lemon or lime juice. One skillet, half an...