Butterfly Blue Pea Nasi Lemak | Blue Coconut Rice

There is nothing as iconic as Nasi Lemak! Nasi Lemak or coconut rice, is a hawker favourite in Singapore and Malaysia, beloved by locals and visitors alike. At its heart lies fragrant coconut-infused rice, lovingly cooked to perfection and infused with the subtle aroma of pandan leaves. You can also find a version of Nasi Lemak in Indonesia, where it is known as Nasi Uduk. In this post, we level up Nasi Lemak with speckles of bright blue – making this one visually arresting dish, especially when paired with the bright red sambal! Best of all, the colouring is ALL NATURAL!

In Malay, nasi = rice.

Meanwhile, lemak literally means fat. More specifically, lemak refers to that rich, creamy taste. In the context of Nasi Lemak, the lemak refers to the coconut milk added to the rice.

While Nasi Lemak refers to the rice itself, it is more commonly referred to as a dish. When you’re eating ‘Nasi Lemak’, you’re not just eating rice! You’re eating a full meal of Nasi Lemak with accompaniments such as the all-important spicy sweet sambal, cucumbers, fried anchovies, and eggs, amongst other things! Read further to see what else you can serve Nasi Lemak with!

Key Ingredients to Make Butterfly Blue Pea Nasi Lemak

1. Rice

The most crucial ingredient, would of course, be rice! Use Jasmine white rice for the best results! Jasmine rice is a medium grain rice with a fragrant aroma. Feel free to use other medium or long-grain rice.

How to Measure Rice to Water Ratio for Perfect Nasi Lemak – 3 Ways!

I used Jasmine white rice, which is the standard rice for nasi lemak. Basmati rice is also a good option for nasi lemak, although there’s no reason why you can’t use your favourite type of rice for nasi lemak. The measurements here will work with long grain rice.

There are three ways to cook this in a rice cooker:

1. Finger Test

For a long time this finger marker test was my method of choice – taught by my Mom! If you’re Asian, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Fill the pot with rice and add the coconut milk. Then rest your finger gently on top of the rice. Pour in just enough water so that it reaches the first knuckle line of your index finger. I don’t know what the science is, but this results in perfectly cooked rice each time. Well, almost always perfect at least! Ever since I got my Zojirushi rice cooker, I’ve abandoned this technique and followed the next method.

2. Rice Cooker Line

This is my GO-TO method, because it gets me perfect rice every time! This method works only if your rice cooker has an indicator line within the pot.

Follow the directions on your rice cooker manual. Most rice cookers these days have levels indicated in the inner pot on the perfect amount of water needed to cook rice.

Add the coconut cream to rice first, and then pour in water until it reaches the ‘2 cup’ line on the marking on the inner pot.

This is the rice cooker I use (and love!) – that has an indicator line in the inner pot:

• Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 Neuro Fuzzy Cooker
• Zojirushi NS-ZAQ10 Micom Fuzzy Logic (the exact one I purchased – this is the same as the model above; it’s labelled differently in Singapore/Southeast Asia. This is a ‘Made in Japan’ model.)

3. 1 Rice : 1 Water

Stick to the general ratio of 1 cup of rice to 1 cup water. In this recipe, do note that I used “cup” as a measurement instead of specific grams and millilitres. The simple answer is that you can use literally any cup – as long as it’s the same cup to measure out rice AND liquid. 1 cup of rice does not always equate to a specific amount of grams or millilitres.

For this Nasi Lemak recipe, follow the 1:1 measurement, and do not include the coconut cream as part of the liquid. Coconut cream is thick, and I found that if included in the liquid measurement, the rice was a little too al dente for my tastes.

2. Coconut Cream vs Coconut Milk

Coconut cream or milk is the next key ingredient to give the rice its signature ‘lemak’ flavour! Simply irreplaceable – it’s just not Nasi Lemak without coconut milk!

There are generally two types of coconut liquids sold out there: coconut cream and coconut milk. For the sake of this recipe, BOTH coconut cream and coconut milk can be used in this recipe, and is interchangeable.

Coconut cream is typically what we buy in the supermarkets that can sometimes be confusingly labelled as coconut milk. These are the ones sold in cartons or tin cans. The main brands available in Singapore supermarkets would be Kara and Ayam Brand. Coconut cream, if you can guess, have a thick, creamy but still runny consistency. This recipe uses this coconut cream.

Coconut Milk are runnier. If you buy fresh coconut milk from the market, this would be it. Unfortunately these are not too easily accessible for most of us city folks. If using coconut milk, you might want to add more coconut milk in place of water – but personally I’ve been able to stay through to this recipe with no issues or a ‘less lemak’ rice.

Caution to not add TOO MUCH coconut cream or milk – it can result is rice that is very oil, and gets mushy easily. There’s such a thing as too much lemak!

Sometimes your rice will have clumps of coagulated coconut cream after cooking – this is perfectly normal, especially if you’ve used a lot of coconut milk. As you fluff and mix the rice, the coconut milk will melt and integrate with the rice.

3. Dried Butterfly Blue Pea Flowers

If you want to level up your nasi lemak, at least appearance-wise, then add a few sprinkling of natural blue food colouring from dried butterfly blue pea flowers (bunga telang)!

Fortunately this is very easily available these days! These are just some links:

• Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Butterfly Pea Tea
• Dried Butterfly Blue Pea Flower
• Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Bags

No issues with using butterfly blue pea teas too, but check that the ingredients are pure butterfly blue pea flowers, with no actual tea (such as black tea) in the sachets.

Butterfly Blue Pea flowers commonly sold dry and used extensively as food colouring. I made a Lavender Blue Pea Kueh Lapis here. It’s not used much as actual flavouring as it is a very mild flavour. It’s more common use is as a drink for its attractive blue colour and health benefits like antioxidants and insomnia-curing properties. The flavour is a very very mildly tangy, floral flavour, but hardly noticeable.

Extracting the blue food colouring is easy. Simply steep the flowers in hot water and the colour would immediately get extracted. You can use room temperature water by the way; I like to use warm water to speed up the extraction process.

Personally I prefer a blend of white and blue rice, but if you want your whole pot of rice to be blue, you absolutely can! Replace the water in the recipe below with blue pea-steeped water. Easy.

TIP! If you want a darker or concentrated shade of blue, use more blue pea flowers, and less water to steep the flowers in. Allow it to steep for longer as well.

4. Ginger

The key aromatics in Nasi Lemak is ginger. This gives the rice just the right amount of aroma and flavour. I would use minced ginger whenever I can, but you can simply rough chop chunks of ginger and add it to the rice. Make sure it’s bigger chunks so that you can fish it out of the rice easier after it is cooked. Of course, do not add more than what the recipe calls for – Nasi Lemak should not taste strongly of ginger.

Not essential but good to add, would be minced garlic and onions, mixed into the rice. Again, optional for Nasi Lemak – the most important ingredient is ginger!

5. Pandan or Screwpine Leaves

Pandan Leaves or screwpine leaves will give Nasi Lemak a lovely fragrance. If you’re Southeast Asian, you know that we love the combination of pandan leaves and coconut cream!

To prepare pandan leaves, wash the leaves and then knot together 2-3 leaves to form a bundle. This bruises the leaves so it releases fragrance into the Nasi Lemak. Knotting it in a bundle will allow you to take it out of the rice easily after the rice is cooked.

If you can’t find pandan leaves, you can use pandan essence, or omit it altogether.

1. Prepare the Butterfly Blue Pea Liquid

To prepare the butterfly blue pea liquid, add the dried butterfly blue pea flowers to a small bowl. You can give the flowers a quick rinse before using.

Pour in hot boiling water into the bowl, and let steep while the rice cooks. Do not add too much water otherwise you will end up with a lighter-coloured liquid.

Once ready for use, strain to remove the flowers and use just the blue liquid.

2. Prepare Nasi Lemak

Rinse rice until water runs clear. Then add the rest of the ingredients! Add coconut milk and top up with water. Add ginger and salt to taste, stir to combine. Finally, nestle in knotted pandan leaves.

3. Cook!

Close the lid and turn on the rice cooker. Let cook at regular rice cooker settings.

4. Drizzle on Butterfly Blue Pea Liquid

Once rice cooker is done, let the rice ‘rest’ for about 10 minutes. Carefully open the lid and remove the pandan leaves. Gently fluff rice with the rice paddle.

With a teaspoon, drizzle the blue pea liquid over the rice. With a rice paddle, flip the rice over to the other side, and drizzle more of the blue pea liquid. There is no need to stir the rice at all. Serve and Enjoy!

Method #2 – Entirely Blue Rice

In this method, we’re colouring the entire pot of rice with the butterfly blue pea! The steps are similar to the first method, except we’re adding the butterfly blue pea liquid at the beginning.

1. Prepare the Butterfly Blue Pea Liquid

To prepare the butterfly blue pea liquid, add the dried butterfly blue pea flowers to a small bowl. You can give the flowers a quick rinse before using.

Pour in hot boiling water into the bowl, and let the flowers steep for about 10 minutes. Do not add too much water otherwise you will end up with a lighter-coloured liquid.

Once ready for use, strain to remove the flowers and use just the blue liquid.

2. Prepare Nasi Lemak

Rinse rice until water runs clear. Then add the rest of the ingredients! Add coconut milk and top up with the butterfly blue pea liquid. If more liquid still needed, simply top up with water. Add ginger and salt to taste, stir to combine. Finally, nestle in knotted pandan leaves.

3. Cook!

Close the lid and turn on the rice cooker. Let cook at regular rice cooker settings.

4. Serve and Enjoy!

Once rice cooker is done, let the rice ‘rest’ for about 10 minutes. Carefully open the lid and remove the pandan leaves. Gently fluff rice with the rice paddle. Serve and Enjoy!

The basic Nasi Lemak is traditionally served with a spicy sweet sambal sauce, refreshing cucumbers, as well as a spoonful of crunchy Fried Ikan Bilis and Peanuts. Watch the YouTube video for the full recipe.

The traditional protein would be eggs – fried or boiled – as well as Ikan Selar, or fried Yellowtail fish. These days, Ikan Selar is a rare find, especially in Singapore! Instead, Ayam Goreng or Otah is the more preferred protein.

• The BEST Sambal for Nasi Lemak
• Ayam Goreng | Crispy Malay Fried Chicken
• Ikan Bilis and Kacang Goreng | Fried Dried Anchovies and Peanuts

You can also serve Nasi Lemak with other dishes such as:

• Authentic Chicken Rendang
• The BEST Beef Rendang Recipe | Indonesian slow cooked beef curry stew
• Sambal Sotong | Spicy Squid Stir Fry

More Recipes Like This:

• Nasi Hujan Panas | Rainbow Rice
• Easy Lontong or Nasi Impit (Compressed Rice Cakes)
• Easy Nasi Minyak | Malay Ghee Butter Rice (rice cooker recipe)

Editor’s Note: *Recipe last updated on 9 May 2024. It’s updated for brevity, and to include a second method to make and entire pot of blue Nasi Lemak!