Name: Khao Kathi (Coconut Rice)
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 2 cups Jasmine rice, aged rice preferred — rinse 2–3 times and drain (ข้าวหอมมะลิ); 2 cups Coconut milk, fresh-pressed if you can; boxed works (กะทิ); 1 tsp – 1 tbsp Salt, Kitchen Tukata uses a full tablespoon, Cookpad a teaspoon per cup (เกลือ); 1/2 – 1½ tbsp White sugar, optional — some cooks leave it out entirely (น้ำตาลทราย); 3 Pandan leaves, knotted (ใบเตย)

ข้าวกะทิ

The simplest Thai rice you can make is also the easiest to get wrong in Britain: jasmine rice cooked in coconut milk from the start, with salt, a little sugar and a knot of pandan. Thai cooks call it khao kathi (ข้าวกะทิ) or khao man kathi (ข้าวมันกะทิ) — "coconut-milk rice" — and it is the plain, fragrant side that older Thai menus served beside som tam long before it became the "coconut rice" line on every UK takeaway menu.

The Recipe (serves 4 · ~50 min)

Suitable for: vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free

For the rice

Thai	English	Amount
ข้าวหอมมะลิ	Jasmine rice, aged rice preferred — rinse 2–3 times and drain	2 cups
กะทิ	Coconut milk, fresh-pressed if you can; boxed works	2 cups
เกลือ	Salt, Kitchen Tukata uses a full tablespoon, Cookpad a teaspoon per cup	1 tsp – 1 tbsp
น้ำตาลทราย	White sugar, optional — some cooks leave it out entirely	1/2 – 1½ tbsp
ใบเตย	Pandan leaves, knotted	3

The Method

Cook the rice in the coconut milk. Dissolve the salt and sugar in the coconut milk until no grains remain. Put the rinsed rice in the rice cooker, pour in the seasoned coconut milk, and tuck in the pandan knots. Cook on the normal white-rice cycle — Thai sources say the liquid level should be what you would use for plain rice, about a knuckle above the grain.
Stir, then finish. About ten minutes in, open the lid and stir the rice bottom-to-top. Coconut milk is sticky: if you skip this, the bottom layer browns and catches. Close the lid and let it finish. When the switch flips, stir once more and taste. Rest for fifteen minutes. If the rice is still firm in the middle, splash in two or three tablespoons of coconut milk and cook for up to ten minutes more.

What it actually is

Khao kathi is jasmine rice (ข้าวเจ้า), not glutinous rice. The rice and the coconut milk go into the pot together and the grain cooks in the milk, taking on its oil and sweetness. The grain ends up glossy and faintly sweet, with a distinct salty-savoury bottom note — nothing like rice that has had coconut stirred through after cooking.

That point matters because of the name. In Thailand the rice cooked for khao mun gai (ข้าวมันไก่) is also called khao mun, but it is a different animal: that rice is fried in chicken fat and cooked in chicken broth with ginger. Khao kathi swaps the chicken fat for coconut milk, which is why the Thai sources below are careful to say "หุงข้าวกับกะทิสด" — cooked with fresh coconut milk — when they mean this dish.

How Thai sources make it

The method across the sources is one sentence: season coconut milk with salt and sugar, cook the rice in it, and stir halfway.

Kitchen Tukata's ancient-recipe thread on Pantip is the clearest version: two cups of aged rice to two cups of fresh coconut milk — "the same amount of liquid you would use for normal rice" — with a tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon and a half of sugar, and three knotted pandan leaves. The rice goes into the cooker with the milk, and about ten minutes in you open the lid and stir, because coconut milk is sticky and the bottom layer will brown and catch if you leave it. Then it finishes, rests, and it is done.

Krua.co's food story, written from old recipe books, found the same truth the hard way: the traditional pot method stirs the rice constantly, and a rice cooker that is never opened burns the bottom brown every time — three or four stirs is what it takes.

Where Thai sources disagree

The liquid ratio. Kitchen Tukata (Pantip, and Kapook's republish) uses 1:1 — coconut milk to the same level you would use water. Cookpad's Dome Klayphaksi uses three cups of milk to one cup of rice, with the knuckle test: if water normally sits one and a half knuckles above the rice, the milk should sit three. The generous ratio gives a richer, softer grain; 1:1 gives a drier, more separate rice.
The salt. One teaspoon per cup (Cookpad) against a full tablespoon per two cups (Kitchen Tukata). The rice should taste savoury, not salty — start low.
The sugar. Kitchen Tukata's version is distinctly sweet (1½ tbsp per two cups); Cookpad uses half a tablespoon per cup; some home cooks omit it altogether when the rice sits beside salty curries. This is the main reason UK and Thai coconut rice taste different — the Thai versions are deliberately sweet-salty, not just milky.

How UK versions get it wrong

Coconut stirred in after cooking. The most common shortcut. The grains stay dull and separate, the milk pools at the bottom, and the rice ends up sweet-soup flavoured instead of infused. If your coconut rice does not stick slightly to the spoon, the milk went in at the wrong time.
Glutinous rice. Some UK menus write "coconut rice" and serve a khao niew moon-style glutinous rice (the mango sticky rice base). That is a dessert rice steamed and dressed with coconut cream — a different dish with the same two words in the name.
The khao mun gai confusion. Restaurants serving "coconut rice" that tastes of chicken stock and ginger are serving the khao mun gai rice. Also excellent — also not this.
The baked version. Khao op ma praow on (ข้าวอบมะพร้าวอ่อน) — young-coconut baked rice with prawns and sausage — is another distinct dish that gets lumped under "coconut rice" on English menus.

Serving

Serve it the way it is meant to be eaten: warm and fluffed, beside green curry, a stir-fry, or on its own with a pinch more salt. And if you want the full historical context — the set where this rice sat with som tam, sweet shredded pork, green curry and tamarind nam phrik — that is the khao man som tum page.

Serving

Presentation: Fluff the rice and serve warm as a side for curries and stir-fries
Extra: The old way: khao man som tum — the rice set beside som tam, sweet shredded pork, green curry and tamarind nam phrik

Cook's Tips

Use aged rice. Fresh-harvest grain goes soft in coconut milk; aged jasmine holds its shape.
The rice cooker must be opened and stirred — the traditional pot method stirs constantly, and Krua.co found the cooker needs three or four flips or the bottom burns.
If the grains look dull rather than glossy, the milk was added after cooking, not before. That is the difference between khao kathi and 'coconut-flavoured' rice.

Variations

The full khao man som tum set. The traditional way this rice was eaten — with som tam, sweet shredded pork, green curry and tamarind nam phrik. We wrote the whole set up as its own page.
Unsweetened savoury version. Some Thai home cooks drop the sugar when the rice sits beside salty curries — the coconut and salt carry it alone.
Pot method. Old recipe books cook it in a pot over low heat, stirring often so nothing catches — the rice cooker simply automates the same care.

Sources

This recipe is translated from the following Thai-language sources. Where they disagree, we've said so.

1. Cookpad — Dome Klayphaksi — https://cookpad.com/th/recipes/8150982

2. Kapook Cooking — Kitchen Tukata — https://cooking.kapook.com/view150572.html

3. Krua.co — Charinrat Jingjit — https://krua.co/food_story/coconut-milk-rice-somtum

4. Pantip 35174810 — Kitchen Tukata — https://pantip.com/topic/35174810

Johnny Tiger

Johnny researches and translates Thai recipes from Thai-language sources — chefs, restaurants and home cooks in Thailand — and publishes them with their sources cited. No westernised shortcuts, no invented steps.