Southeast Asia

Nasi Lemak: Malaysia's National Dish, Made in a Rice Cooker

Name: Nasi Lemak: Malaysia's National Dish, Made in a Rice Cooker
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Malaysian
Ingredients: 2 cups (300 g) Rice (Thai or jasmine); 200 ml Coconut milk; 200 ml Water; 2 Pandan leaves; 2 slices Ginger (thinly sliced); 1/2 tsp Salt; 8–10 Dried red chilies; 4 Shallots; 3 cloves Garlic; 2 tbsp Dried shrimp; 1 tbsp Tamarind paste; 1 tbsp Sugar; 1/2 tsp Salt; 3 tbsp Vegetable oil; 50 g Whitebait (shirasu-boshi), or small fish simmered in soy; 50 g Peanuts (unsalted); 1 Cucumber; 4 Boiled eggs; 2 tbsp Vegetable oil (for frying)

Nasi lemak, Malaysia's coconut rice with sambal, crispy anchovies, peanuts, cucumber and egg, made in a home rice cooker. Includes a homemade sambal, a whitebait stand-in for ikan bilis, and the dish's backstory.

Published: October 24, 2026Total: 1 hrLevel: Beginner

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 4

Cook the coconut rice

40 min

Rice cooking in a rice cooker with coconut milk and pandan leaves — The sweet scent of coconut milk and pandan drifts from the rice cooker. The ordinary white-rice setting is fine

Rinse 2 cups of rice and put them in the rice cooker's inner pot. Add 200 ml coconut milk, 200 ml water and 1/2 tsp salt, and stir lightly. Tie 2 pandan leaves in a knot and set them on the rice, then add 2 thin slices of ginger. Cook on the regular setting.

When it's done, check that the rice is plump with no hard center, remove the pandan leaves and ginger, and fluff it gently with a rice paddle. Close the lid and let it steam for 10 minutes so the coconut fragrance spreads through the rice.

Rice cooker tip

Coconut milk fat makes Japanese rice cookers boil over easily. Use slightly less liquid than usual (coconut milk plus water at about 95% of the normal amount) to prevent this. Wipe the inner lid right after cooking so the coconut smell doesn't carry over to the next batch.

STEP 22 / 4

Make the sambal

20 min

Sambal frying in a pan; oil is starting to separate from the bright red paste — Sambal is done when the oil separates. Cook it slowly over low heat until it reaches this point

Remove the seeds from 8–10 dried red chilies and soak them in warm water for 10 minutes to soften. Drain, then process them in a food processor with 4 shallots, 3 cloves of garlic and 2 tbsp dried shrimp into a coarse paste.

Heat 3 tbsp vegetable oil in a frying pan over medium heat and add the paste. Cook over low to medium heat for 10–12 minutes, until the oil separates.

When the oil turns red and a film of oil floats on the surface of the paste (called "pecah minyak" in Malay, meaning "the oil splits"), add 1 tbsp tamarind paste, 1 tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp salt and cook for 2 more minutes.

Adjusting the sambal's heat

Removing the chili seeds cuts the heat by more than half. If it's still too hot, reduce the chilies to 5 and add 1 tbsp paprika powder to keep the color. If you'd like more heat, leave the seeds in or add more chilies.

STEP 33 / 4

Prepare the crispy fish (ikan bilis) and peanuts

10 min

Crispy stir-fried whitebait and roasted peanuts — Whitebait fried until crisp comes close to the texture of ikan bilis. Dry-roast the peanuts until fragrant

Heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a frying pan over medium heat and add 50 g whitebait. Stir-fry for 3–4 minutes until crisp. You're aiming for whitebait that has turned brown and snaps crisply when you pick it up with chopsticks.

In a separate pan (or the same pan, wiped out), dry-roast 50 g peanuts over low heat for 5 minutes. Keep shaking the pan so they don't burn, and remove from the heat when they turn light brown.

Thinly slice 1 cucumber and halve the 4 boiled eggs.

STEP 44 / 4

Plate

3 min

If you have a banana leaf, lay it on the plate (it's fine without). Mound the coconut rice into a round, and arrange the sambal, crispy whitebait, roasted peanuts, 2 mm slices of cucumber and boiled egg around it.

Put the sambal beside the rice and mix it in little by little as you eat. The crunch of peanuts, the freshness of cucumber, the heat and sweetness of sambal and the rich scent of coconut rice. When these five come together in your mouth, you understand what nasi lemak is.

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Ingredients

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Coconut rice (nasi)

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Rice (Thai or jasmine)	2 cups (300 g)	Japanese rice also works. Thai rice gives a looser, more authentic result. "Cup" here means the 180 ml rice-cooker cup
Coconut milk	200 ml	Carton or can
Water	200 ml	Together with the coconut milk, this makes the usual cooking liquid
Pandan leaves	2	Tie in a knot and put in the rice cooker. If you have none, substitute 2–3 drops of vanilla extract
Ginger (thinly sliced)	2 slices	For flavor. Remove after cooking
Salt	1/2 tsp	—

Where to find pandan leaves

Pandan leaf (screwpine) has a sweet fragrance and is called the "vanilla of Southeast Asian cooking." Frozen pandan leaves are available at Asian grocery stores and online. If you can't find any, 2–3 drops of vanilla extract come close. Some shops also sell pandan essence (a concentrated liquid).

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Sambal (chili paste)

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Dried red chilies	8–10	Remove the seeds and soak in water for 10 minutes. Japanese takanotsume chilies work
Shallots	4	1/2 regular onion works
Garlic	3 cloves	—
Dried shrimp	2 tbsp	Tiny dried sakura shrimp work. Look in the Chinese or Asian grocery section
Tamarind paste	1 tbsp	1/2 tbsp pickled-plum (umeboshi) paste plus 1 tsp lemon juice also works
Sugar	1 tbsp	—
Salt	1/2 tsp	—
Vegetable oil	3 tbsp	—

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Accompaniments (condiments)

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Whitebait (shirasu-boshi), or small fish simmered in soy	50 g	The authentic choice is ikan bilis (fried anchovies). Stir-frying dried whitebait in a pan until crisp gets a similar texture
Peanuts (unsalted)	50 g	Dry-roast in a frying pan
Cucumber	1	Thinly sliced. Essential as a palate cleanser against the spicy sambal
Boiled eggs	4	Hard-boiled. Cut in half to serve
Vegetable oil (for frying)	2 tbsp	For crisping the whitebait

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5 a.m. in Malaysia, waking up to the smell of coconut

It's 5 a.m. in Kuala Lumpur. In a back alley still dark, motorbikes keep pulling up to a hawker stall. These are people buying nasi lemak before work, each a small triangular parcel wrapped in banana leaf. It's a familiar picture of the Malaysian morning.

Nasi lemak translates from Malay as "fatty rice," but lemak here means the rich, mellow quality of coconut milk. It is loved as Malaysia's national dish and is presented as a signature dish in tourism guides. It spread as a breakfast staple, but today you can eat it at lunch and dinner too, at restaurants and at street stalls.

Coconut rice, fiery sambal, crispy little fish, peanuts, cucumber and a boiled egg. Heat, sweetness, saltiness and toasty flavor all on one plate is what makes nasi lemak so appealing.

This article shows how to recreate nasi lemak faithfully in a home rice cooker, with ingredients that are easy to find. It takes a very different approach from other Southeast Asian rice dishes such as nasi goreng (in Japanese) or pad kra pao over rice (in Japanese). If you'd like to move on to the forests of Sarawak and bamboo-tube cooking in Malaysia, ayam pansuh (in Japanese), chicken steamed with lemongrass and ginger, shows a regional character quite different from nasi lemak.

Among rice dishes, nasi kerabu (in Japanese), from the east-coast state of Kelantan, builds its plate differently, layering herbs, grilled fish and coconut sambal. It's a good next dish if you want to widen your Malaysian cooking from the scent of coconut.

If you'd like to follow breakfast with a Malaysian sweet snack, a small slice of kuih lapis (in Japanese), which carries on the coconut fragrance, links the table from the street stall to the home tea table.

Nasi lemak ingredients: coconut milk, pandan leaves, rice, lemongrass, whitebait, peanuts and chilies — Coconut rice is the star of nasi lemak. The sweet scent of pandan and the heat of sambal wake the body up in the morning

Ingredients (serves 4)

Nutrition (approximate, for one quarter of the batch)

Nutrient	Per 1/4 of the recipe
Calories	520 kcal
Protein	18 g
Fat	22 g
Carbohydrates	62 g
Fiber	3 g
Sodium	680 mg

Allergy information

This dish contains egg, nuts (peanuts) and shellfish (dried shrimp). If you have a peanut allergy, leave the peanuts out. The dried shrimp can be omitted and the dish still works, but the sambal has a little less depth.

Method

Nasi lemak is made in separate parts. Prepare the coconut rice, the sambal and the accompaniments individually, then assemble at the end. With a rice cooker the rice looks after itself, so you can prepare the sambal and accompaniments in the meantime.

Cooking tips

A breakfast scene at a Malaysian hawker stall with nasi lemak on display — At Malaysian hawker stalls, nasi lemak is lined up from 5 a.m.

Choose "first-press" coconut milk

Coconut milk comes as "first press" and "second press." Concentration varies by product, so if you're using a thick canned one, dilute it 1:1 with water to keep the rice from getting too heavy.

Make extra sambal and store it

Sambal keeps for 2 weeks in the refrigerator or 2 months in the freezer. Make a double batch and you can use it to season stir-fries, as a sauce for grilled fish, or as the flavor base for nasi goreng (in Japanese), not just nasi lemak.

Recreate ikan bilis with whitebait

Authentic ikan bilis are dried anchovies fried in oil. Japanese shirasu-boshi are the young of the same anchovy family, so stir-frying them in a pan until crisp gives a very similar texture and flavor. Like the sakura shrimp in pad thai (in Japanese), it's a good example of a dried ingredient that works well as a stand-in in Southeast Asian cooking.

If you don't have a rice cooker

To cook on the stove, soak the rice in water for 30 minutes, then add the coconut milk, water, pandan leaves and ginger. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to low, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it steam for 10 minutes. Stir the bottom of the pot occasionally to prevent scorching.

Variations

Nasi lemak ayam goreng (fried chicken version)

This is the most popular variation at Malaysian restaurants. Season chicken thighs with 1 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 clove of grated garlic, coat in potato starch, and fry in 170°C (340°F) oil for 8–10 minutes. The combination of crisp chicken and sambal is more filling than breakfast needs to be.

Nasi lemak rendang (beef rendang version)

Serving it with rendang (beef simmered in spiced coconut) is another popular combination in Malaysia. A ready-made rendang paste makes it easy at home. Rendang needs 2 hours of simmering in a separate pot, so making it the day before makes the morning easier.

A mild version (for children)

Skip the sambal and serve a "sweet-savory sauce" made from 2 tbsp ketchup and 1 tsp soy sauce. Coconut rice, crispy whitebait, peanuts and cucumber alone make a plate that is plenty delicious and popular with children.

Japanese-style nasi lemak

Cook the rice with 200 ml soy milk instead of coconut milk for a Japanese twist. Serve 2 tsp yuzu kosho (yuzu-chili paste) in place of the sambal, and use the whitebait as is. It's a fully localized version made only from Japanese pantry ingredients. As with banh mi (in Japanese), blending with Japanese ingredients produces new flavors.

Background: a dish that anchors the Malaysian table

Nasi lemak wrapped in a banana leaf triangle, the traditional Malaysian takeaway style — Nasi lemak in the banana-leaf bungkus style. In Malaysia it's sold this way as breakfast

Breakfast in Malaysia and beyond

Nasi lemak is known as Malaysia's national dish, but it is also eaten in Singapore, where many ethnic Malays live, and in Indonesia's Riau province, the Riau Islands and Medan. In Singapore too it's a breakfast staple sold at hawker centers and roadside stalls. It's a dish whose food culture reaches wider than national borders.

The history of nasi lemak

Coconut-based dishes appear throughout Southeast Asia, and coconut milk is an essential ingredient in Indonesian cuisine (in Japanese) as well. Nasi lemak is said to have originated in the 19th century among people living along the sea on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, as a breakfast in a place where coconuts and small fish were plentiful. One of the earliest appearances in writing is The Circumstances of Malay Life (1909) by the British Orientalist Richard Winstedt.

In the 1970s, some vendors reportedly went from house to house carrying wrapped nasi lemak. Once a simple breakfast to fill the bellies of working people, nasi lemak is now eaten morning, noon and night.

Fun fact

Malaysia's National Heritage Department recognizes nasi lemak as one of the country's heritage dishes. From street-stall parcels to hotel breakfasts, part of the fun is that the accompaniments differ from place to place even under the same name.

A flavor loved by Malaysia's many peoples

Malaysia is a multiethnic country home to Malays, indigenous peoples, Chinese, Indians and others. Nasi lemak is eaten across all communities, and what people serve with it, whether fried chicken, curry chicken or rendang, reflects their own tastes.

FAQ

Make-ahead parts for nasi lemak: sambal, crispy whitebait and peanuts in storage containers — Sambal and crispy whitebait keep in the refrigerator. The Malaysian way is to prepare ahead so that in the morning you only need to cook the rice

Should I use canned or carton coconut milk?

Either is fine, but cartons are easier to use up and recommended. Canned milk can be thick, so dilute it 1:1 with water before using. Leftover coconut milk can be frozen (an ice-cube tray is handy).

Thai rice or Japanese rice?

Thai rice (jasmine rice) gives a more authentic result. Its long, loose grains go well with coconut milk. You can make it with Japanese rice, but it comes out a little stickier and closer to porridge. If you use Japanese rice, reduce the water by 10–15%.

Does it work without sambal?

Sambal is the soul of nasi lemak. Leave it out and it becomes a different dish. If you don't like spicy food, substitute store-bought sweet chili sauce, or use fewer chilies in the sambal and make it sweeter with more sugar. For other dishes where heat takes the lead, Middle Eastern shakshuka (in Japanese) and Turkish köfte (in Japanese) are also useful references for adjusting spiciness.

Where can I get banana leaves?

Frozen banana leaves are sold at Asian grocery stores and online. They add fragrance and presentation but have little effect on flavor. You can make the dish perfectly well without them.

Can I make it ahead?

Coconut rice is best freshly cooked but is still good when cold. The sambal and crispy whitebait can be made ahead and kept in the refrigerator, so the Malaysian way is to prepare those so that in the morning you only need to cook the rice.

Sources

National Heritage Board (Singapore), Roots, "Nasi Lemak" (19th-century west-coast origins; vendors going door to door in the 1970s. Accessed 22 October 2026)
MICHELIN Guide, "What Is Nasi Lemak?" (5 September 2024. Accessed 22 October 2026)
Wikipedia, "Nasi lemak" (meaning of the name, Winstedt's 1909 account, names in neighboring regions. Accessed 22 October 2026)