For Diwali and every celebration

Saffron Kheer

Slow-reduced milk, rice and sugar, turned gold with kesar and finished with nuts. The most-cooked saffron dessert on earth, and the one where the quality of your threads is most obvious.

Serves
6
Prep
10 min
Cook
1 hr
Saffron
15 threads
Shop the saffron
Overhead view of a white cup of golden Afghan saffron tea with red saffron threads floating on the surface, beside a bowl of Super Negin threads

Method

  1. Bloom the saffron

    Steep the threads in 3 tbsp of warm milk. Leave it while the kheer cooks — twenty minutes or more is fine here.

  2. Reduce

    Bring the milk to a boil, add the rice, and drop to a bare simmer. Cook uncovered for 45–50 minutes, stirring regularly and scraping the base, until reduced by about a third and visibly creamy.

  3. Sweeten

    Stir in the sugar and cook another 5 minutes until dissolved.

  4. Add the saffron

    Stir through the bloomed saffron with its milk and the cardamom. Cook just 2 minutes more — enough to distribute, not enough to boil the aroma away.

  5. Finish

    Take off the heat, stir in most of the nuts, and serve warm or chilled with the rest scattered over.

Notes from our kitchen

  • Rinsing then draining the rice — rather than soaking — gives the grains that hold their shape in the finished kheer.
  • A heavy-based pan is worth it. Milk catches on a thin base and the burnt note never leaves.

Keep cooking

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A crystal bowl filled with long all-red Super Negin saffron threads from Herat, Afghanistan, beside a cup of brewed saffron tea

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A bowl of deep red Herati saffron threads next to a branded Authentic Afghan Saffron teacup filled with golden saffron tea

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Afghan Super Negin saffron threads in a crystal bowl with the Authentic Afghan Saffron branded porcelain teacup of golden tea

Afghan saffron ice cream

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All recipes

Made with

The saffron this recipe is written for.

Single-origin Herati Super Negin, single-origin and harvest-dated.

The hero
The 1 gram crystal bottle of Authentic Afghan Saffron Super Negin threads

For giving

The Crystal Bottle — 1 g

One gram of Super Negin in a crystal keepsake bottle. About 60 cups of tea.

$19.99About 60 cups of tea
Give the bottle
Most gifted
The Authentic Afghan Saffron gift box beside the branded porcelain teacup of golden saffron tea

For the ritual

The Ritual Set

The bottle plus the porcelain teacup and saucer.

$44.991 g + teacup & saucer
Shop the set
All-red Super Negin saffron threads heaped in a cut-crystal footed bowl

For the kitchen

The Connoisseur Jar — 5 g

For the kitchen that cooks with saffron, not around it.

$59.99$12.00/g
Shop 5 g

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