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    Watch What U Eat > Healthy Sides > Instant Pot Mexican Brown Rice

    Instant Pot Mexican Brown Rice

    Published: Oct 1, 2019 · Modified: Jun 7, 2022 by Watch What U Eat · This post may contain affiliate links · 4 Comments

    Recipe Print
    Instant Pot Mexican Brown Rice Recipe - Make this delicious brown rice in Instant Pot for easy and simple side to your favorite Mexican meal. It is prepared using authentic spices, fresh tomato, onion, and garlic. | #watchwhatueat #instantpot #mexicanrice #instantpotrice #brownrice

    This easy Instant Pot Mexican brown rice is a wonderful side dish option. Quick prep time along with tons of flavors this brown rice dish is my go-to recipe whenever I cook Mexican meals at home.

    Mexican brown rice in a bowl with avocados, lime, and a spoon
    Jump to:
    • What You Will Need!!
    • How to make Instant Pot Mexican Brown Rice
    • Serving options
    • Helpful Tips!
    • 📖 Recipe

    If you are not a fan of brown rice, yet you want to eat it more often because of its health benefits then I would suggest cooking it in an Instant Pot if you have one. You will love it!

    Ever since I started cooking brown rice in the pressure cooker, especially in IP, my dear husband stopped saying NO (or giving ugly looks ) to it.

    And I got a chance to try my hands on different recipes using brown rice. Some of my favorites are vegetable fried brown rice, lentil salad, cilantro-lime rice, etc.

    This time I am sharing with you the IP version of our all-time favorite and most popular Mexican Style Tomato Brown Rice (with slight variations). You can follow the original recipe (stovetop version) if you want to cook this dish without the Instant Pot.

    Ingredients for making Instant Pot Mexican brown rice.

    What You Will Need!!

    You may find these ingredients already sitting in your pantry.

    • Brown rice – use long grain rice
    • Onion – dice it into small pieces
    • Garlic – chop it finely
    • Tomatoes – dice them into small pieces
    • Blend of Mexican spices
    • Cooking oil – I use avocado oil or olive oil
    • Salt to taste
    Sauteeing rice with Mexican spices in Instant Pot

    How to make Instant Pot Mexican Brown Rice

    Cook some onion with garlic in little oil in Instant Pot on saute mode. Then add brown rice and saute for 4-5 min. Add Mexican spices, tomatoes and cook for another 2-3 min. Finally, add water, season with salt, and mix well.

    Cook the mixture on manual high pressure for 22 min. Let the pressure release naturally for 10 min. Then manually vent out the steam. Gently mix the rice, garnish with fresh cilantro and serve warm.

    Mexican brown rice prepared in Instant Pot

    Serving options

    • Serve with cilantro lime chicken, roasted fajita veggies, and some homemade guacamole or sliced avocado for a complete meal.
    • It is a perfect rice dish to serve alongside shredded chicken tacos or any other tacos.
    • Add it to Mexican-flavored chicken avocado salad to make a wholesome dish.

    Helpful Tips!

    • Brown rice – You can use any long-grain brown rice variety for this recipe. I always use brown Basmati rice in my kitchen.
    • You can also add cooked beans to the dish once the rice is done to make it a complete and filling meal.
    Mexican brown rice in a bowl with avocados, lime, and a spoon

    More Mexican recipes You WIll Love!

    • Sweet Potato Lentil Chili
    • Chicken Taco Rice Casserole Skillet
    • Cilantro Lime Chicken Thighs
    • Southwest Grilled Chicken Burger

    More Instant Pot Recipes!

    • Healthy Instant Pot Cauliflower With Delicious Gravy
    • Instant pot whole chicken with gravy
    • Easy and Healthy Instant Pot Black Bean Soup
    • Instant Pot Chicken biryani
    Mexican rice in a bowl with avocados, lime, and a spoon

    Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments if you REALLY like this recipe. Thank You!

    📖 Recipe

    Instant Pot Mexican Brown Rice Recipe - Make this delicious brown rice in Instant Pot for easy and simple side to your favorite Mexican meal. It is prepared using authentic spices, fresh tomato, onion, and garlic. | #watchwhatueat #instantpot #mexicanrice #instantpotrice #brownrice
    Print Pin
    4.84 from 6 votes

    Instant Pot Mexican Brown Rice 

    Make this delicious brown rice in Instant Pot for easy and simple side to your favorite Mexican meal. It is prepared using authentic spices, fresh tomato, onion, and garlic.
    Course: Lunch / Dinner,Side Dish
    Cuisine: Mexican Inspired
    Prep Time 10 minutes
    Cook Time 22 minutes
    Total Time 32 minutes
    Servings :4
    Calories :262kcal
    Author:Swati Kadam Gulati

    Equipment

    • Instant Pot

    Ingredients

    • 1 tablespoon cooking oil
    • 2-3 garlic cloves finely chopped
    • 1 small onion diced into small pieces
    • 1 ½ cup brown rice
    • ½ tablespoon chipotle chili powder
    • 1 teaspoon cumin powder
    • 2 large tomatoes diced into small pieces
    • 2 ½ cup water
    • 2-3 tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro
    • salt to taste

    Instructions

    • Heat cooking oil on medium saute mode in Instant Pot.
    • Add garlic, onion and cook until translucent or for 2-3 mins.
    • Now add rice, chipotle chili powder, and cumin powder and stir fry for 2-3 mins.
    • Add tomatoes and cook for another 1-2 min.
    • Then add water, salt to taste and mix well.
    • Cook the mixture on manual high pressure for 22 mins.
    • Let the steam release naturally for 1 min and then quick release the remaining.
    • Add freshly chopped cilantro and mix well. Serve warm.

    Notes

    1. I prefer to clean the rice with water before using them in recipes. You can rinse and drain the excess water from rice using a large strainer.
    2. This rice dish has a slight heat coming from chipotle chili powder. You can consider it adding as per your taste. I love its flavors even though it is slightly hot.
    3. You can also serve lime wedges on the side of this brown rice dish. 

    Nutrition

    Calories: 262kcal
    Tried this recipe?Tag us on Instagram @watchwhatueat or tag #watchwhatueat! OR leave us a comment & rating below. Your feedback is very important to us.
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    About Watch What U Eat

    We are Swati and Tushar, our passion for food and cooking has now led us to share some healthy, tasty recipes and the benefits of eating certain ingredients with the goal of inspiring you to eat well and live well.

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Jennifer says

      June 09, 2022 at 12:03 am

      5 stars
      For some reason I still had a lot of water at the end and rice was still hard. I follwed recipe to T. Not sure what happened. But flavor was yummmyyyy! Thank you for recipe.

      Reply
    2. Ken Hathcock says

      October 12, 2021 at 4:52 pm

      5 stars
      I never comment on recipes but thank you so much. I’m so happy with this rice!!!!

      Reply
    3. Miriam Torres says

      April 18, 2020 at 1:34 am

      5 stars
      I’ve never made rice in the insta pot before and I thought what better kind of rice to do it with than brown, since I can’t ever get the cooking time right on a stove top.
      I followed the directions of rinsing rice before hand, and the rest of the instructions with these two changes.
      Instead of water I used home made chicken broth (same amount).
      Instead of chipotle powder (I didn’t have any and duh, quarantine, wasn’t going to the store to buy any) I used 1/2 of a chipotle in adobo sauce (from the can), minced.
      I only used one half because I didn’t want this to be too spicy that my 8yr old and 1 yr old wouldn’t eat. It was the perfect amount of flavor and little hidden kick. I would say using a whole chipotle would give the equivalent of the dry chipotle in original recipe.
      In regards to salt as I saw someone wished the measurements where given, I measured so I can post here. 2 teaspoons of salt.
      First I started with one and felt it needed a little more.
      Rice was perfect, the kids ate it will deff make this again.

      Reply
    4. Caroline says

      January 01, 2020 at 1:11 pm

      4 stars
      This was good! I was making for a crowd, so I tripled the recipe – which JUST fit in my 6 qt instant pot. Used the same cooking time as the recipe & the rice was cooked nicely. I doubled the onions and spices (instead of tripling) as many of the guests were kids. Also I dialed the chipotle chili powder way back – 1/2 Tbsp for the single recipe seemed like a ton. .

      I’d love a measurement on the salt (perhaps as a range) – I plopped some in before cooking but after cooking I needed to add a lot more.

      Reply

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