- Country of origin
- 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
- Category
- Main Course
- Difficulty
- ●●○ Medium
- Preparation
- 20 min
- Cooking
- 45 min
- Servings
- 6 servings
History
Kabsa is considered the national dish of Saudi Arabia: basmati rice long-cooked with meat — chicken, lamb, or camel — and a spice blend called baharat, or “kabsa spices,” combining cardamom, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and black pepper.
Every Saudi family jealously guards its own spice ratio, passed down orally from generation to generation, which explains the wide variety of flavors from one household to the next despite a shared name; kabsa is also found, in closely related variants, in several Gulf countries such as Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
Those regional cousins carry their own names and small differences: Qatari and Emirati machbous lean slightly sweeter with dried lime and loomi, Kuwaiti versions often add tomato for a deeper red color, while kabsa itself stays the driest and most cardamom-forward of the group — a family of dishes united by the same rice-and-baharat technique more than by a single recipe.
Ingredients — serves 6
- 1 chicken, cut into pieces (or lamb)
- 500 g (17.5 oz) basmati rice
- 2 onions, thinly sliced
- 3 tomatoes
- 1 tbsp baharat spice blend
- Cardamom, cinnamon, clove
- Raisins and toasted almonds, for garnish
Kabsa, step by step
- Brown the chicken pieces in a little oil, then set aside.
- Sauté the onions and tomatoes in the same pot with the baharat spices.
- Return the chicken to the pot, cover with water, and simmer until tender.
- Remove the chicken, strain, and measure the broth needed to cook the rice.
- Cook the basmati rice directly in this fragrant broth until fully absorbed.
- Arrange the rice on a large platter, place the chicken on top, and garnish with raisins and toasted almonds.
Cooking method
Technique: rice cooked by absorption directly in the spiced meat broth, so it fully soaks up the flavor.
Traditional equipment: large rice pot, shared serving platter for a communal meal.
Signs of doneness: the rice is ready when every grain is separate and evenly colored by the broth, without excess moisture at the bottom.
Nutrition, per serving
Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities above, divided by six servings.
Rice cooked in meat broth rather than water gives kabsa a full one-pot nutrition profile in a single serving — 75 g of carbohydrate and 46 g of protein together, with fat staying moderate relative to the dish’s size, since the chicken is simmered rather than fried.
Economic context
Rice and chicken are both everyday staples across the Gulf, keeping kabsa accessible enough to appear at family tables as often as at restaurants — it functions as both a routine meal and, in its more generous whole-chicken presentation, a dish for guests.
Source: World Bank / FAO, Food Prices for Nutrition database (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet) v4.0, 2024 data, CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.57966/41AN-KY81. Retrieved 29 July 2026. This figure describes the cost of a healthy diet in Saudi Arabia generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.
Who this dish suits
Fits well with
- Balanced, energy-dense meals combining protein and carbohydrate in one dish
Worth knowing
- 75 g of carbohydrate per serving, since the rice is the bulk of the dish
- Contains tree nuts (almonds) in the traditional garnish
- Spice ratios vary significantly by household — the figures above reflect one representative recipe, not a fixed standard
What about you?
In your opinion, where’s the best place or restaurant to enjoy good kabsa?