The love and pride of Malaysia – this vegan nasi lemak features fragrant coconut rice, sweet spicy sambal, fresh cucumbers and peanuts. Mushroom rendang elevates it to the next level.
Selamat Hari Merdeka, Malaysia!
If you’re reading this on the day it’s been published, today is Malaysia’s Independence Day. No dish better represents Malaysia than nasi lemak. We have it for breakfast, lunch, tea time, dinner. You can get palm-sized versions pre-wrapped in banana leaf and newspaper at the mamak, prepared right in front of you as the street vendor compacts everything into a triangular paper package (“Nak kacang, adik?” “Tak nak. Mak cik, boleh tambah sambal ke?“), or on a nice plate at a nice restaurant (an atas place, as we like to call it).
What is Nasi Lemak?
Nasi lemak literally translates to ‘rice fat’, because the rice is cooked in coconut milk, making it rich and fragrant. This coconut rice is typically served with sambal, an egg (hard-boiled or fried), cucumber slices, fried peanuts and sambal. We also enjoy it with rendang, fried chicken, tempeh and other dishes.
I omitted the egg and fried anchovies this time, and paired this vegan nasi lemak with my mushroom rendang.
How to Make Perfect Sambal
In my opinion, sambal is what makes or break a plate of nasi lemak.
Belacan is used often in Malaysian, specifically Malay, cooking and it’s an important ingredient in sambal. It’s a fermented shrimp paste, with a very savoury distinct flavour. To recreate that, I use a combination of taucu and nori. Taucu is a type of fermented soy bean paste, similar to the Japanese miso and Korean doenjang. It’s not as sweet as miso though, and I would describe it as an umami punch in the face. Nori is what mimics the sea-like flavour you’d get from shrimp.
I’m quite particularly about sambal, haha, and I had to test multiple batches before I was satisfied with the result. A problem I faced was that the sambal was way too spicy, even after dumping in scary amounts of gula melaka in a failed attempt to tone it down.
Here are 2 tips to make the perfect sambal:
- If your sambal is too spicy, blend more onions into the paste. The recipe below is the perfect amount for me, but this is good to know if it’s still too spicy for you.
- Deseed the dried chilies thoroughly. I cut them into pieces before soaking, then cut them open and remove all the seeds. The first time I did this, I used my bare hands. My hands felt like they were on fire the next four hours, so I highly recommend you wear gloves while doing this.
Here are more Malaysian recipes to try:
- Vegan Sweet and Sour Pork 咕噜肉
- Vegan Curry Laksa
- Dhal (Malaysian Lentil Curry)
- Vegan Roti Canai
- Vegan Ayam Goreng Kunyit (Fried Turmeric Mushrooms)
If you made this recipe, do leave a comment and rating below because I love hearing your feedback. Make sure to tag me on Instagram @eatwkriss so that I can see your recreations!
The Ultimate Vegan Nasi Lemak
Ingredients
Coconut rice
- 1 inch ginger sliced
- 2 shallots diced
- 1 cup fragrant rice rinsed and drained
- 1 cup coconut milk
- ½ cup water
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 pandan leaf knotted
Sambal paste
- 20 g dried chili
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 inch ginger
- 3 shallots
- 1 small red onion roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp taucu (fermented soybean paste)
- 1 nori sheet torn into pieces
- water to blend
Other
- ¼ cup oil
- 2 pandan leaves knotted
- 2 tbsp tamarind juice (asam jawa) more to taste
- 40 g coconut palm sugar (gula melaka) more to taste
- ¼ yellow onion sliced, optional
- salt to taste
To serve
- mushroom rendang
- fried peanuts
- cucumber sliced
Instructions
Prepare rice
- In a large pan with some oil, fry ginger and shallots until fragrant. Add in jasmine rice and toast for a few minutes. Pour everything into a rice cooker pot with coconut milk, water, salt and pandan. Cook the rice.
- Toss the freshly shredded coconut in some salt, then steam for 10 minutes. In a large pan over medium heat, toast the coconut until golden brown and fragrant. Then blend to get a smooth and thick paste.
Make sambal
- Soak dried chili in hot water for 15 minutes, then deseed them thoroughly.
- In a blender, combine all the sambal ingredients with enough water to blend. You should get a smooth paste
- Heat a large pan with oil over medium heat. If you have raw peanuts, fry them now, then set aside. Cook the sambal paste for 10 minutes, or until there is no more raw chili smell. Add in pandan, tamarind juice and gula melaka, cook for another 5 minutes. You can add water if it's getting too dry.
- Add sliced onion and season to taste with salt. Let simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Serve the nasi lemak with sambal, fried peanuts, fresh cucumber and even some mushroom rendang.
Notes
- If using fresh santan, you can sub the water in the rice. Salt is needed to bring out it’s fragrance.
- Make sure you deseed the dried chili thoroughly, otherwise the sambal will be too spicy and you’ll need to add a lot of sugar. I wear gloves to prevent chili burn.