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Hainanese Chicken Rice is a very popular dish in Singapore and Malaysia. In fact, Singapore has claimed this as their national dish! The chicken is served either roasted, poached, or steamed.

The flavor of the rice is out of this world! It’s not just plain white rice. Normally, the uncooked rice is stir-fried in ginger and garlic, then cooked in chicken broth. Yumm, right??

For this particular recipe, I toss everything in the rice cooker and let it do its magic!

I used to save this dish for weekends because it was a bit of work, but using a rice cooker, I now can enjoy chicken rice even on the busiest weeknights!

First, rub 2 teaspoons of sesame oil on to 6 chicken drumsticks. I like using chicken drumsticks for this, but you can use chicken breast or chicken thighs (skin on). Just make sure that the pieces are small enough so that it’s cooked all the way through. Let it marinate for about 20 minutes.

After washing and draining the rice (2 cups), put the uncooked rice straight into the rice cooker . Instead of filling the rice cooker with water, fill it with chicken stock to the “2-cup” line. It should be approximately 3 cups of chicken stock.

Next, add 3 cloves of garlic (finely chopped), and about 1 inch of ginger (thinly sliced, then cut into thin strips).

Arrange the chicken drumsticks over the rice.

Finally, add 3 pandan leaves, tied into a knot. If you’re not able to find pandan leaves, feel free to leave it out. It’s optional but it does add a very subtle fragrance to the dish. In the States, I was only able to find pandan leaves in the freezer section at the Asian supermarkets.

Just let the rice cooker do its thing and by the time the rice is cooked, the chicken will be perfectly cooked as well. Tender, flavorful, and juicy.

The rice, of course, extremely flavorful with the chicken stock, ginger and garlic. Garnish with chopped scallions, then serve with your favorite chili sauce on the side.

The best part about this dish is that there’s hardly any cleanup since everything was cooked in the rice cooker 🙂

Enjoy!



