With bold and exotic flavors and loads of seafood, this Paella-Inspired Rice Casserole is easy and fun to make and incredibly delicious!
There was an 8.9 earthquake in Japan last night and I want to thank everyone for your concerns. I just talked to my mother on the phone (5 am there) after hours of not being able to reach her. She informed me that my family is okay. My friends are also okay although I haven’t got a response from all of them.
I debated if I should talk about food when you are probably worried about me and my family, but I wanted to take this opportunity to remind all of you to prepare an emergency kit or update your kit if it has expired. It’s better to be well-prepared than not being prepared at all. I pray for Japan to recover from this natural disaster soon.
Once in a while, I enjoy cooking non-Japanese food, like paella. The recipe I share may not be labeled authentic because I use Japanese rice instead of Bomba or Calasparra rice. However, this recipe allows you to prep the paella using the existing ingredients that are already in the pantry. Like me who once in a while cooks non-Japanese meals, but I don’t want to go out to buy ingredients I typically don’t use. The cooking time is based on Japanese rice I used and the method is my original. If you don’t have a paella pan, you can use a large stainless-steel skillet instead. You don’t need to buy a paella pan unless you cook paella often. I use my favorite red cast-iron braiser, which is supposedly not a perfect pan for paella because it retains too much heat. But it always worked fine for me and I like that I can bring it directly to the table and the presentation looks lovely. Enjoy!
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Easy Paella-Inspired Rice Casserole
Ingredients
- ¾ lb manila clams
- 1 tsp Spanish saffron
- 1 Tbsp warm water
- 3 cups chicken stock/broth
- 1 ½ Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 ½ cups uncooked Japanese short-grain white rice (equivalent to 2 rice cooker cups)
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- ½ cup white wine
- ½ red bell pepper (sliced)
- ½ orange bell pepper (sliced)
- 2 chicken thighs (cut into small pieces)
- ¾ lb sliced squid (rinsed)
- 8 tiger shrimp (I prefer keeping the shell for retaining more flavor)
- 8-10 asparagus spears
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 2 green onions/scallions (chopped)
- lemon (to serve)
Instructions
- 4 hours prior to cooking, start de-gritting clams. Gather all the ingredients.
- Soak saffron in warm water and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 425ºF (220ºC). For a convection oven, reduce the cooking temperature by 25ºF (15ºC). In a small saucepan, bring the chicken stock to a boil and set aside.
- Heat the oil in an oven-safe pan (I use a cast iron braiser) on medium heat and add rice. Stirring constantly for 5 minutes, or until the rice is translucent.
- Add garlic and stir for a couple of minutes.
- Then add white wine. Let all the alcohol evaporated.
- Add the chicken stock and mix well.
- Add saffron including saffron water and bring it to a boil.
- After boiling, place bell peppers on top of rice.
- Transfer the pan into the oven and cook at 425ºF (220ºC) for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, take out the pan and quickly place the chicken, squid, tiger shrimp, manila clams, and asparagus on top of rice and bell peppers. Put the pan back into the oven.
- Cook for 20 minutes. After it’s done, take out the pan from the oven and sprinkle salt, black pepper, and green onions. Serve with lemon wedges if you like.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 2-3 days.
What size pan would I need? Last week my Japanese friend made paella with Japanese rice and it tasted great. Can’t wait to try.
Hi Amy! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post!
Nami used this pan for this recipe: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076NORDA?ref=exp_justonecookbook_dp_vv_d
But, you can also use an 11″ skillet if it can go into a 425ºF (220ºC) oven.
We hope this helps!
[…] Easy Paella Recipe […]
Nami. i belive there is typo at total cooking time. should be 1 hour 10 min instead of 5 hr 10 min?
cheers
Eddie
Hi Eddie! Thanks for asking! I actually included the de-gritting time, which is about 4 hours in advance. It’s inactive time, but I don’t want to surprise people that they purchase clams and didn’t include 4 hours of waiting period. I’ll mention that in the step 1. Thank you!!!
Hi Nami,
Thanks for this easy recipe. I substituted asparagus with frozen peas. Since I did not know if my new paella pan could be put in the oven or not, I cooked using the stovetop. The paella was so flavorful. Thanks.
Hi Darlene! I’m so happy to hear yours came out well. Thank you so much for your kind feedback! 🙂
If I need to double the amout, do I double everything? Like double the stock? I don’t want the rice too mushy or undercooked. .thanks
Hi Hong! Will need to double everything – though I assume your pot size may not be double then the ingredients may not fit?! I haven’t doubled this recipe to make yet, so I can’t gurantee… but usually we just double or triple as you need. 🙂
Hi Namiko…
Thank you for the paella recipe.
May I ask…what if I omit the white wine? Can I subsitute it with a non alcoholic substitute? What will be best?
Thank you
Hi Marhamah! You can use water or broth instead. 🙂
it looks really good, and not difficult. Im gonna try this recipe next week.
but what the temperature for cooking in the oven?
Hi Aria! Sorry it was a bit confusing. I wrote to “preheat oven to 425F” in Step 3. I just updated the recipe and wrote the 425F in step 10 too. THANK YOU!! 🙂