Ancient Kamado Rice

June 11, 2025-Posted by Joshua Gerrity

This recipe tastes pretty much the same cooked on your stove top as it does on your Saffire, except you can cook it alongside any other kamado-baked recipes. Try it if you don’t want to spend extra money cooling your house during the summer! Plus it’s really good as a side dish.

Ingredients

  • 1-2 cups rice
  • 2-4 cups water – Take however many cups of rice you use and double it to get the cups of water needed.
  • 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable base/paste (has lots of salt, no additional salt needed). I used the Better than Bouillon brand of vegetable base. Chicken or beef base will work just as well.
  • 3 tablespoons Dash
  • 1 teaspoon garlic
  • 1 teaspoon thyme
  • 1 teaspoon basil

Utensils

  • Oven-safe bowl, like a casserole dish
  • Saffire Heat Deflector

Instructions

  1. Light your Saffire with the bottom vent fully open and the top vent swung fully open.
  2. Once the fire is going strong, put your heat deflector into your Saffire and put the cooking grids on. (Clean the grids if you feel the need.)
  3. Rinse your rice in a strainer under running water for a few seconds, or until it stops bubbling.
  4. Add the rice to your casserole dish, and add the prescribed amount of water.
  5. Stir in your vegetable base with a spoon until it mixes with the water. No clumps of base should remain.
  6. Add seasonings.
  7. Once your Saffire reaches an internal temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit, put your rice on the cooking grids and close the grill.
  8. Cook at 350-400 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 25 minutes, stirring every ten minutes.
  9. Remove and let cool for approximately 5-10 minutes.
  10. Enjoy it while it’s hot!
Rice Cooked In A Casserole Dish On A Kamado

Okay, so this isn’t really an ancient recipe, but the precursors to the modern kamado have been used to cook rice for millennia. “Kamado” is Japanese for oven, and the mushikamado (“moveable oven”) was specifically designed as a rice steamer, according to Wikipedia. In fact, whether you call them kamados or not, ovens were originally made from earthen material, and were used to cook all kinds of food, including rice. So enjoy this very modern twist on an ancient method!