This Instant Pot Mexican Rice is flavored with tomato bouillon or caldo de tomate for an authentic Mexican taste. It cooks up perfectly and is a great side dish to all your favorite Tex Mex recipes! Ready in about 30 minutes!
Why you'll love it
It's easy to make. Take the guesswork out of making rice when you use your Instant Pot! The Sauté function makes it easy to crisp the rice before setting it and forgetting it!
It's made with easy to find ingredients. Sometimes the best foods are the simplest foods! This Instant Pot Mexican Rice is made with panty ingredients that are easily found or that you may already have on hand. If you haven't heard of tomato bouillon or caldo de tomate, you can usually find it right along side other bouillon cubes.
It pairs well with all your favorite Mexican and Tex Mex dishes. Feeding the family or a crowd can be a lot easier when you have a filling side dish to offer along with dishes like my Ground Beef Tacos, Beef Burritos, and Instant Pot Mexican Beans. Don't forget to grab some chips and this delicious Homemade Guacamole too.
Ingredients
Step by Step Instructions
Gather and prep ingredients. Cut an onion in quarters. Reserve half for another use. Crush one clove of garlic. Chop tomato bouillon.
Rinse the rice and set aside.
Set the Instant Pot the the Sauté function. When heated, add oil then the rice. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Press cancel.
Add garlic, onion, broth, tomato sauce, and chopped tomato bouillon, and salt.
Stir mixture to combine.
Set Instant Pot to Manual or High Pressure for 3 minutes. IMPORTANT NOTE: turn Keep Warm to Off. This will help keep the rice from burning and sticking to the bottom of the insert. Let pressure release naturally for at least 10 minutes. If necessary, release remaining pressure.
Remove garlic and onion if desired and fluff with a fork. Season with salt and pepper.
Expert Tips
Be sure you are familiar with your brand of pressure cooker before making this recipe. Read the safeguards and understand the controls and features. I made this recipe with the Instant Pot Ultra 60 (6 quart).
It's important to have enough liquid. While less broth can produce a firmer rice, it may also result in a burn warning. This recipe follows the Instant Pot recommendation of a 1:1 ratio of rice to liquid, with the addition of ½ cup of tomato sauce for a slightly moister rice.
Why is my rice mushy? Perhaps you added more liquid then what was called for. Try letting the rice "rest" with the lid off so it can dry out a bit.
Substitute chicken broth with vegetable broth if desired. Note that tomato bouillon in not vegetarian. If you want to make this dish vegetarian, use a vegan or vegetarian bouillon or simply omit.
Tomato bouillon or caldo de tomate comes in cube and powder form. Use about 2 teaspoons of the powder if you prefer that over crushing up the cube.
Long grain rice will produce fluffy, separate grains. I don't recommend short grain or any glutenous types of rice.
No tomato sauce (puree) on hand? You can make your own tomato sauce by combining one 6 ounce can of tomato paste with ½ cup water. Sir vigorously with a whisk. Use ½ cup of this mixture in place of tomato sauce. You can also use my fire-roasted Blender Salsa in place of tomato sauce!
Add traditional ingredients like peas and carrots. In a skillet, lightly sauté fresh, diced carrots and frozen peas (about ½-1 cup) in a little butter and season with salt and pepper. Cook until crisp-tender. Add to the finished rice dish for added color and flavor. You can also add some fresh corn if it's in season. Frozen or canned corn works too.
More Popular Side Dish Recipes
Loaded Mashed Potatoes (Slow Cooker)
Click here to check out all my Mexican and Tex Mex favorites!
If you make this recipe, I’d love for you to give it a ★ rating below. And since you made it this far, let’s connect on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest!
Instant Pot Mexican Rice
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon mild flavored oil such as canola olive or vegetable oil
- 2 cups white rice long grained
- 1 clove garlic peeled and crushed
- ½ onion quartered
- 1 cube tomato bouillon caldo de tomate
- ½ cup tomato sauce puree
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups chicken broth
Instructions
- Rinse rice under cold running water. Set aside.
- Peel and crush garlic. Peel and quarter an onion. Reserve half the onion for another use.
- Turn Instant Pot to Sauté function. Once hot, add oil to heat then add rice. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until rice turns very white and some of the grains turn slightly golden.
- Press cancel. Add garlic, onion, bouillon, tomato sauce, salt, and chicken broth. Be careful of any steam.
- Close and lock the lid. Be sure the valve is in the sealing position.
- Select Manual or Pressure Cook at high. Use the dial to set the time for 3 minutes. Set Keep Warm function to Off.
- When the cooking cycle ends press cancel (if you don’t it’s ok, it will turn off automatically since the keep warm function is off). Allow the IP to release naturally for at least 10 minutes. If all the pressure has been released, the float valve will sink back into the lid. If the float valve is still up, use the end of a wooden spoon to press the pressure release valve to allow the remaining steam to release.
- Remove lid. Fluff with a fork. Stir in any additional vegetables like peas and carrots. Season with salt and pepper.
Tracey
Made it twice, got the burn warning twice. It is still edible though so not a total loss. Probably won’t do it a third time though since the pot is a bear to clean after it sticks. 🙁
Nikole
I'm so sorry this didn't work for you Tracey. I use an IP Ultra 60, which is an older model. I've heard the newer models are more sensitive. Not sure if that may be the case with you. I know you don't plan to make the recipe again, but I would suggest not cooking the rice first and just adding the ingredients to the pot and setting it to cook (for those who may have a similar issue). It's possible that the pre-cooking is getting the inner pot too hot, or perhaps it's causing the rice to stick to the bottom and is causing the message.
Dee
This did not work for me. I got the burn warning twice, even after adding 4 cups of broth and more tomato stuff. I ended up putting it on slow cook to stop getting the warning and it ended up being more like a thick soup.. Maybe this happened because I live at 6000 feet. I think I would try it on the rice setting next time and add more liquid from the get go.
Nikole
I'm so sorry that happened Dee! I don't live in a high altitude, so I'm not able to do an accurate test of how this recipe would turn out in your location. I make this recipe often and it always turn out, so I apologize that I can't give you any trouble shooting tips, other than to say that pressure cookers do vary and if you know the best liquid to rice ratios for your cooker, then please use that amount.