Side Dish Main Dish Potluck Dish This Recipe Covers It All
I used to spend way too much time mulling over what to make as a starchy side. For a long time, I completely forfeited and just served extra roasted broccoli. But now, this rice pilaf is my go-to! Im making it once a week and nobodys tired of it. The best part if that its an Instant Pot rice recipe, which in my mind translates to the best, tastiest, quickest, fluffiest rice you can make at home. You can keep it vegetarian or throw in some protein and make it a meal! I like to buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocer, chop it up, and toss it in. Probably one of the easiest complete rice dinners you can whip up in 20 minutes.
How To Make Rice In An Instant Pot
If you follow these simple steps, you’ll have fluffy, perfectly cooked long-grain white rice every time.
Heres Whats In This Rice Pilaf:
- Olive or avocado oil
- Basmati or long grain white rice
- Garlic
- Garlic powder
- Sea salt
Start by activating the Sauté function on the Instant Pot. Drizzle in the oil and let it heat up. Once the oil is hot, add the chopped scallions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and garlic. Let the vegetables simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 2 minutes. Transfer the rice into the Instant Pot, stir, and let the rice toast for about a minute or two. Add the onion powder, garlic powder, and a smidgen of salt. Add the broth and soy sauce to the pot, give everything a quick stir, and secure the lid on the Instant Pot. Set the valve to Sealing and cook the rice on high pressure for 4 minutes. When done, let the pressure naturally release for 5 minutes. Unlock the lid, fluff the rice with a fork, and let it stand for about 5 minutes before serving.
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Tips For Making Fluffy Rice In The Instant Pot
To make perfectly cooked jasmine rice in the Instant Pot, it helps to do two things:
What To Serve With Jasmine Rice
You can serve Jasmine rice with any dish that requires rice. Its a very nice fluffy rice that works well with all dishes, not just Thai dishes. In my house, we also serve it with Beef & Broccoli or Panang curry, or just as a plain rice side dish with butter and salt.
> > Try one of these 11 Instant Pot Meals in Under 30 Minutes.
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The Importance Of The : 1 Rice
Keeping the one-to-one ratio is the key aspect of good rice. Less water will result in undercooked or unevenly cooked rice, while more water may result in overly soft or soggy rice. If you prefer softer rice, particularly brown rice, add anywhere from a couple of tablespoons to 1/4 cup more water before cooking.
Making Brown Rice In The Instant Pot:
- Rinse: Use a fine mesh strainer to thoroughly rinse the rice. I often use my hand to move the rice around and make sure it all gets rinsed.
- Cook: Combine rice, water, butter and salt in Instant pot. Lock the lid and secure the vent and cook on high for 10 minutes
- Release: Let the pressure release naturally. Carefully remove the lid and fluff with a fork.
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Recipes To Serve With Jasmine Rice
Jasmine rice is a type of long-grain rice that has the lowest starch content of any rice. Compared to other types of rice, jasmine rice is light and doesnt often stick together. It has a light floral aroma and chewy texture and is best paired with Thai dishes. Try cooked Instant Pot Jasmine Rice with any of these recipes and more.
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Instant Pot Pesto Chicken and Potatoes
Instant Pot Basics.Making Rice in the Instant Pot is one of the Instant Pot Basics. Here are some of my other basics:
- Hardboiled Eggs: Just add a little water to the pot, place your eggs on the cooking rack , and press the EGG button Perfect hardboiled eggs in just about 10 minutes.
- Meat: You can cook meat and poultry from frozen or fresh and it always comes out tender and moist Love!
- Slow Cooker: Use the Instant Pot just like you would use your crockpot Set it to cook on low for any amount of time that youd like, it will automatically turn to WARM when the time is up.
- Dried Beans: Cook them in under 30-minutes with no pre-soaking.
Find 6 MORE if my Instant Pot Basic Recipes HERE.
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Manual Settings For Instant Pot Rice
Otherwise, rinse the rice and add it to the pot. Add the water . Add a bit of butter or olive oil if desired. Its not necessary but it adds nice flavor. You can also use diluted chicken or vegetable broth instead of the water for even more flavor.
Season with salt.
Place the lid on the Instant Pot and lock it. Make sure the valve is sealed. Press Manual or Pressure Cook depending on your machine, select HIGH, and use the + or buttons to adjust the cooking time to 5 minutes. Turn off the Keep Warm button, if possible, which would cause the rice to overcook.
When the time is up, allow the pressure to naturally release . When the valve has dropped after the pressure has naturally released , open the Instant Pot .
Fluff the rice with a fork and serve hot.
Soak Rice For 20 Minutes
I tried both soaking rice and skip soaking rice prior to cook rice in the Instant Pot. Whether its cooked in manual mode or Rice mode, when I didnt soak rice, it did not become tender all the way through.
This is probably the only difference between cooking other types of rice. I often get asked why we need to soak Japanese short grain rice. Unlike the other types of rice, Japanese short grain rice is plump, and it takes time for the moisture to go through. Therefore, we always soak the rice first, giving the dry rice a head start in absorbing moisture.
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Ingredients For Instant Pot Rice
- Rice: I like to make this recipe with Jasmine rice. Basmati or long grain white rice will also work well with this method.
- Water: Nothing complicated here, tap water is just fine. To add more flavor to your rice, you can swap the water for vegetable of chicken stock.
- Salt: A little salt helps to add flavor to the rice as its cooking.
How To Cook Brown Rice In The Instant Pot
You can cook rice 2 different ways in the Instant Pot. The most straight-forward way is to pour the rice and water directly into the bottom of the stainless steel pot and cook it on its own.
This is the method I use when making a large batch of rice for the week ahead, as part of my meal prep routine. Its nice to have some cooked rice on hand for a quick weeknight stir-fry!
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How Do You Make Rice In The Instant Pot
Its very simple, but there are a couple changes that I make from my traditional recipe for perfect rice on the stovetop. First is the water ratio While I generally use 1 cup rice to 1 ¼ cups water for my stovetop rice, in the Instant Pot, that ratio drops down to 1-to-1. 1 cup of water for every one cup of rice You can make as little or as much Instant Pot rice as youd like.
The reason for the reduced water is that the Instant Pot is more sealed than a traditional cooking pot, meaning less evaporation of water during the cooking process. Be sure to rinse that rice before adding it to the Instant Pot, to get rid of any additional starches Just run it under water until the water is clear. The result is perfect Instant Pot rice thats light and fluffy.
I also like to add in 1 teaspoon of oil for each cup of rice that Im making This not only prevents the rice from sticking to the pot, but it also cuts down on the foaming a bit so that your Instant Pot doesnt sputter and spit. Plus, for perfect Instant Pot rice, I always add a pinch of salt for each cup of rice that Im cooking, to flavor the rice right from the get-go.
How To Store Instant Pot Jasmine Rice
The best tried-and-true method for storing rice is to freeze it when its still hot, to lock in some of the steam. You can store leftover rice in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, but it will become gummy and clumpy over time. We like the rice storage directions from Just One Cookbook the best, which detail several methods for storing and reheating cooked rice.
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Recipe Notes And Tips
- Rinse your rice well under cold running water before adding to the Instant Pot. This will help to remove the starch so that your rice doesnt get clumpy and gluey. This will ensure nice and fluffy rice.
- If making ahead of time, let the rice cool completely before storing and only reheat it once.
- The ratio of water to rice is 1:1 and this Instant pot rice recipe is easily doubled or tripled.
How To Make Perfect Basmati Rice Every Time
You can cook perfect basmati rice every time using these simple steps.
Rinse: Rinsing is an important step, and it will help in removing starch from basmati rice. Rinsing will yield fluffy rice, so do not skip this step.
Soak: Soaking is optional, but I usually soak my rice for at least 30 minutes. By soaking rice, grains will absorb the water, and they get cooked uniformly. If you are skipping the soaking step, please use more water for cooking the basmati rice.
Pressure cook: Carefully drain the water completely from soaked rice and keep it aside. Next, brush the instant pot inner pot with oil so that cooked rice will not stick to the pot.
Alternatively, you can start the instant pot in saute mode. Once it is hot enough, add oil and turn off the instant pot. Spread the oil by tilting the pot or using a brush.
Add spices like cumin seeds, cardamom, cloves, bay leaf, and cinnamon stick to the hot oil if you want to flavor the rice.
Now add drained rice, salt, and water to the inner pot. Close the instant pot with its lid and seal the vent.
Then, start the instant pot in manual or pressure cook mode and pressure cook for 5 minutes on high pressure.
Pressure release: Once the instant pot ends, wait for 5 minutes and do a manual pressure release. Do not wait for a natural pressure release as it will overcook the rice and make it mushy.
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Pressure Cooking Rice With Other Foods
The benefit of cooking any variety of rice using the pot-in-pot method is that you can cook another dish on the bottom of the pot at the same time. For example, my Instant Pot Chipotle Burrito Bowls have dry black beans cook from scratch on the bottom of the pot, while a bowl of brown rice cooks on top of that in a separate bowl.
You can do the same thing with chicken and white rice, with the chicken cooking on the bottom of the Instant Pot while a bowl of white rice cooks on top. The thing to keep in mind when cooking two dishes at once is that both dishes need to cook in roughly the same amount of time. Ive listed plenty of pot-in-pot cooking times for you to refer to!
You can even cook chicken and cauliflower rice together, like in my Instant Pot Chicken Burrito Bowls.
How Many Cups Of Rice Can You Cook In An Instant Pot
In theory: 2.5 cups in a 3-quart Instant Pot. 5 cups in a 6 quart Instant Pot. 6.5 cups in an 8-quart Instant Pot.
This is US standard measuring cups and raw dry rice.
So the mathematical thought for the theory is the following:
- 1 cup of raw white rice gives on average 3 cups cooked rice.
- Instant Pots should not be filled more than 2/3 of its full capacity at any time. So we have to take the expanded rice into consideration.
- A 6-quart Instant Pots capacity is 24 cups and two-thirds of that are 16 cups.
- There should not be more than 16 cups cooked rice in the Instant Pot and since 1 cup raw makes 3 cups cooked we have to divide the 16 by 3. That makes 5.3 cups.
The calculation is only theory though. I have not tried that many cups in my own 6-quart. 4 cups raw dry rice are the maximum I have cooked myself without any issues and with perfect results.
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Ingredients Needed For Easy Instant Pot Rice
You can use any flavor of Rice-A-Roni that you want to make this delicious side dish. I like using the low-sodium Chicken version.
Here is everything you need to make the best boxed rice in the Instant Pot:
- Rice-A-Roni whichever flavor you like
- Butter or olive oil
For a full-flavor version, use low-sodium chicken broth for all the water and broth mixture.
For a healthier side dish, add up to 1 cup of diced frozen vegetables.
What Is Basmati Rice
Basmati is a variety of rice that is long, slender, and aromatic. This variety of rice is majorly grown in the Indian subcontinent. Basmati rice will be long and thin even after cooking it, and that’s the specialty of this rice.
Plain basmati rice is also so flavorful and makes an everyday meal special.
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Storing Instant Pot Rice
This recipe will make about 2 servings of Spanish rice. So if you are serving it for a family dinner, you might want to double or triple the recipe.
Then if you have any leftovers, you can store the rice in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
And if you want to keep it for longer, you can store it in a freezer-safe bag for up to 3 months! When you are ready to eat it, just thaw the rice in the fridge overnight.
For the best way to reheat your Mexican rice, put it in a pan on the stovetop for a few minutes until warm.
And to reheat the rice quickly, put it in the microwave for a few seconds.
How To Reheat Rice
When I reheat rice I always use it in fried rice. That way I know I warmed my rice thoroughly.
It is very important to heat all of your rice because of bacteria that can survive in cooked rice.
So heat your wok or skillet to hot and add your rice. You can reheat from frozen. Just stir it continuously until you see all of the rice is piping hot. Then serve.
You can also reheat the rice using the microwave but I never do this. If you do, add 2 tablespoons of water to an airtight container with the rice.
Put the container in the microwave and heat for 3 to 4 minutes or until it is really hot through.
Check if the internal temperature is at least 165 or hotter and serve immediately.
If you want perfect rice every time give this Instant Pot long-grain rice recipe a try!
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