When you hear a recipe for Coconut rice, what comes into your mind? Maybe an instructional guide on how to prepare the dish, or the ingredients used in preparing it, or maybe general knowledge about the dish.

Okay, so coconut rice has been trending for a while now in the country, the truth is that I have been experimenting wildly and hoping that I would come up with a delicious and healthy recipe… and this sure takes the cake.

It is one thing to prepare a delicious food, making it healthy is a whole different story; with this recipe, I was able to achieve those two.

We have healthy foods in Nigeria but they are often diluted with unnecessary chemicals or excessively heated before they are eaten.

With this discourse, I am hoping to show you some of the health benefits of coconut and also proffer a very delicious way of consuming coconut. While coconut can be used as ingredients for many Nigerian foods, is it also eaten as a snack and used as raw material for several finished products.

Coconut is high in dietary fibre, helps to improve heart health, helps to prevent obesity, reduces sugar cravings, acts as an energy booster and improves digestion. It is gluten-free, non-toxic, and contains antibacterial, antifungal and anti-parasitic healing properties. This is nice and the list is endless.

What is even nicer is when you make a delicious plate of rice out of it. This is my latest coconut rice and girl! It is delicious. I tried so hard to eliminate every unnecessary/unhealthy ingredient and it still turned out delicious.

Coconut Rice Ingredients

Here is how you prepare this delicious meal, you can use chicken, goatmeat or fish.

Ingredients (6 persons)

1. Goatmeat – 1kg

2. 3 cups of rice

3. 1 medium-sized coconut

4. 3 cubes of Knorr or Maggi

5. 3 seeds of yellow pepper

6. 3 seeds of red pepper

7. 1 medium-sized green pepper

8. 1 sachet of kitchen glory – (beef seasoning).

9. A teaspoon of thyme.

10. Curry leaves – half cup

11. Salt to taste.

How to Coconut Rice

For this coconut rice recipe, you do not need the water inside the coconut; you need the actual chewable coconut, just grate it.

Begin by parboiling the rice, slicing the green pepper, and yellow/red pepper and grating the coconut, the image below shows you how it is done.

Pre-cook the meat for about 10 minutes with the kitchen glory, onions, salt and a cube of Maggi, wash the parboiled rice and set aside. There is no frying in this recipe, always avoid the oil when it is possible, you do not need it.

Transfer the pre-cooked meat to a bigger pot, add two cups of water, 1-2 cubes of Maggi or knorr, salt to taste and the parboiled rice. Allow to cook for 15 minutes, add grated coconut and another cup of water (if necessary), the other coconut rice recipe needed just the milk, here you add everything.

Allow to simmer for the next 10-20 minutes until the rice is soft, you can add more water along the line, taste for salt and add more if needed.

Add the thyme, green pepper, red/yellow pepper and curry leaves once the rice is getting soft, you don’t want it too soft.

Allow to simmer for three to four minutes, turn together and serve with your favourite soft drink