Risgrøt (Norwegian Rice Porridge)

Thanksgiving is over and it has even snowed in Bergen now, so I’m in full Christmas mode over here. I’ve of course been baking lots of my favorite Scandinavian Christmas cookies, but another Christmas favorite of mine is risgrøt (also risengrynsgrøt), or Norwegian rice porridge.

Risgrøt is a Norwegian rice porridge made with short grain rice and milk, usually topped with cinnamon, sugar, and butter. Norwegians eat risgrøt on Christmas Eve, but they will also eat it throughout the year. In the lead up to Christmas I’ll often whip up some risgrøt for lunch because it’s such a cosy Christmas meal.

We use short grain “porridge rice” (grøtris in Norwegian) to make risgrøt, which is actually the same as sushi rice – I use Norwegian grøtris for all of my Japanese cooking as well.

And then Norwegians use the leftover porridge to make riskrem, or Norwegian rice pudding. This is especially popular as dessert on Christmas Eve, after we’ve eaten rice porridge for lunch. I’ve shared my riskrem recipe here.

On Christmas Eve, we’ll usually have risgrøt for lunch, and we’ll hide an almond in the porridge (removing the skin so it’s not easy to find). Then whoever finds the almond wins the julegris, or Christmas marzipan pig! And they’ll try to be very secretive about finding the almond so that everyone keeps eating more and more porridge in the hopes that they’ll be the winner.

You might also hear Norwegians refer to risgrøt as julegrøt, or Christmas porridge.

This is a small marzipan pig, but the prize on Christmas is often a much larger marzipan pig!

You can switch the recipe from US measurements to metric by clicking from “US Customary” to “Metric” under Ingredients.