Chipotle Cilantro Rice in a Rice Cooker (Copycat)

If you're a fan of Chipotle Mexican Grill like I am, you'll love this easy copycat Chipotle cilantro lime rice recipe. It's so simple to replicate their delicious rice in a rice cooker. Chipotle uses this rice in their burritos, burrito bowls, and other dishes. You can do the same, but it's also a delicious and simple side dish.

I cook rice often, as I prefer eating it to most other starches. I use it as a base for some of my other recipes, such as Chicken Korma and Gallo Pinto. Because I use it so often, I invested years ago in a rice cooker. Cooking rice in a rice cooker is easy, and it frees up the stove for other things (really important when cooking many dishes at the same time, such as for holiday meals!)

As a side dish, however, white rice can be pretty bland. But if you make it the Chipotle way, you'll end up with rice that has a lot of flavor, yet still goes well with both Latin and Asian recipes. It transforms white rice into the perfect side dish!

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• FAQ
• Recipe

Ingredients

This recipe takes only a few simple ingredients:

• 3 cups of water
• 2 cups of rice (Basmati is best, but jasmine rice works too)
• Olive oil
• 1-3 Bay leaves
• Salt
• Fresh lime juice from 2 limes
• Fresh lemon juice from ½ of a lemon
• Fresh cilantro

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

Making the rice is easy! First, you'll want to rinse your rice. Long grain rice has a lot of starch on the surface. Rinsing the rice removes most of that excess starch, and the result is fluffy rice where the grains don't stick together.

To rinse rice, you can put the rice into the rice cooker insert, fill the insert with water, then strain through mesh or by mostly covering the edge while you carefully pour the water out. An easier way is to use a fine-mesh sieve.

After you've finished rinsing the rice, simply add the first 5 ingredients (water, rice, olive oil, bay leaf, and salt) to your rice cooker and turn it on. Use the "white rice" setting.

While the rice cooks, chop the cilantro. It's best to try and remove the cilantro stems after chopping. For that reason, I do a rough chop first, pick out the stems, them chop a bit more to make the leaves smaller.

Once the rice finishes cooking, squeeze the juice from 2 limes and half a lemon into the rice, and stir to combine. Top with chopped cilantro before serving.

Substitutions

If you prefer Jasmine rice (or any other kind of Asian long-grain rice), you can use that instead. And if cilantro tastes like soap to you, first of all, I'm sorry for your loss. ;) Second, you can omit it, or replace it with chopped flat-leaf parsley.

Variations

Chipotle also serves a brown rice. I believe it omits the oil, but unless you're watching your fat intake, I would include the olive oil if you prefer to use brown rice.

If you'd like more lime flavor, you can also add lime zest to the top, when you add the cilantro.

Equipment

As I mentioned above, I love to use my rice cooker and do so often. That's why I've outlined the rice cooker method here.

However, if you don't have a rice cooker, you can make the rice on the stove top by boiling it in water. If you need instructions, this article explains it and is very easy to follow! Just add the bay leaf and salt to the rice before cooking, and add the juices and cilantro after.

Storage

Rice can be stored in the refrigerator for 3-5 days, but the quality decreases over time. This recipe will taste best when fresh, but if you store it in an airtight container, it will still taste pretty good for a few days after cooking. The addition of the olive oil helps it not to dry out in the fridge.

FAQ

Recipe