Mexican restaurant-style rice is a perfect side dish for all your Mexican-inspired meals and it comes together so quickly using the Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker.
You know how when you go to your favorite Mexican restaurant and, no matter what you actually order, the meal always seems to include a side of flavorful, red-hued rice studded with small pieces of unidentifiable vegetables? My kids — even the one who doesn’t technically eat vegetables — inevitably pounce on the rice piling it on their plates even as they ignore the fajitas and enchiladas that we actually ordered.
Well, I have always wanted to recreate this restaurant favorite at home, especially because it seems to bamboozle J.R. into eating vegetables. I was certain that this rice would be the perfect side dish for my Chicken Tinga recipe which, to this day, is one of my daugther’s favorite dinners. I even found a good recipe for Mexican restaurant rice on The Kitchn, but I was discouraged because it had so many steps and dirtied two pots — a lot for what amounts to a side dish.
Happily, I have found the secret to making easy, restaurant-style Mexican rice at home. It’s the Instant Pot. Isn’t the Instant Pot the secret to making every recipe easier these days?
The Instant Pot, for those of you who haven’t yet joined the cult bought one of these popular appliances, is part of the new generation of multi-cookers. The Instant Pot is primarily an electric pressure cooker, which means it cooks even tough foods like beans and grains in a fraction of the time it would take on the stove.
But the real genius of the Instant Pot is that it that it combines so many functions in a single appliance, including a sauté function and the availabilty to keep food warm for hours. Thus, in this dish, you can toast the rice and sauté the jalapeño peppers in the same pot that you will use to cook the rice, just as you would on the stove.
But the advantage is that the Instant Pot cooks the rice quickly and easily without any babysitting from you and keeps it warm until you need it. So you can focus on making the rest of dinner. Isn’t that what we all want from side dishes: to cook by themselves in the corner and stay warm until it is time for dinner?
One small recipe note: you will notice that I call for a white onion. Rick Bayless, the Chicago-based chef and expert on Mexican cuisine, states in no uncertain terns that you should always use white onions in Mexican cooking, claiming that the flavor of yellow onions is “too muddy.” I tend to keep yellow, white and red onions around for maximum flexibility. But if you only have a yellow onion, go ahead and use it. We do not have to be sticklers about authenticity in our home kitchens.
Ingredients
- 28 oz can whole tomatoes
- 1 white onion
- 3 TB vegetable or canola oil
- 2 cups long-grain white rice, such as Basmati
- 4 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp salt
- Zest and juice of one lime
- Chopped cilantro (optional)
Instructions
- Combine the tomatoes and onion in a blender or food processor and puree. Set aside.
- Using the saute function on your Instant Pot or multi-cooker, on low heat if possible, heat the oil. Add the rice and jalapeno peppers and toss to coat with the oil.
- Toast the rice and peppers for five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the peppers are softened and the rice slightly golden in color.
- Add the garlic, cumin and salt and saute an additional minute.
- Add 1 1/2 cups cups of the tomato-onion mixture (you will have some left over), the broth and the lime zest and juice. Cover and cook on high pressure for ten minutes.
- Let the pressure release naturally for ten minutes, then release the remaining pressure manually.
- When ready to serve, fluff the rice with a fork and add chopped cilantro, if desired.
