Mexican Rice (Arroz Mexicano)

Sometimes called Spanish Rice, or Arroz Mexicano made with fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, and toasted rice. You’ll find this dish is full of flavor.

Jump to:

• What type of rice is best?
• Other ways to season the rice
• Optional vegetables to add
• How to store and for how long
• What does this pair well with?
• Step by step process
• Mexican Rice Recipe

What type of rice is best?

Long grain rice is what is normally used, but other types of rice work well too.

Other ways to season the rice

It’s also very popular to use sazón packets, ground cumin, and chicken bouillon. Most will use the sazón packets if they aren’t grinding their own tomato concentrate. For every cup of dry rice add 1 pack of sazón, ½ a teaspoon of cumin and/or ½ tablespoons of chicken bouillon. Add it in after pouring the water over the rice. You can add 1 or all of the mentioned spices, the choice is yours.

Optional vegetables to add

Carrots (cubed small), corn, peas, cilantro, a whole serrano or jalapeño pepper to flavor the cooking liquid. Add as much or little of the veggies as you’d like. You would add the veggies at the time you add the 2 cups of water so that it all simmers and softens together. The serrano or jalapeno and/or cilantro sprig you would pull out once it has finished cooking.

Some also like to add boil eggs and eat them with the rice or add them to the top of the rice as part of the presentation when serving it buffet style.

You can try other fave veggies too, the choices are endless.

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Deliciius Mexican rice! Super fluffy and soft. Great with some refried beans! Checkout the full recipe at www.lasaucykitchen.com/mexican-rice/

A post shared by La Saucy Kitchen (@lasaucykitchen) on Jun 4, 2020 at 3:19pm PDT

How to store and for how long

You can store this in an air tight container for about a week.

What does this pair well with?

This would be awesome with just about anything! I think you might enjoy it with:

• Refried Beans Shredded
• Beef in a green salsa
• Spicy ground beef

Step by step process

Start off by adding your Tomatoes, onion and garlic to a blender. Blend all of the ingredients with no water. The tomatoes should have enough liquid that will help the blender.

You should end up with 1 cup of liquid.

Set the mixture aside, you want to have that ready to go when your rice is finished toasting. We don’t want to walk away from the rice when it’s toasting because it could potentially burn and that would be horrible.

To a pot on low to medium low heat, add one tablespoon of oil and one cup of uncooked rice.

While toasting your rice you want to make sure not to burn because it will ruin it or you will have to start all over.

Toast for about 10 to 15 minutes or until you see that it has started to change in color and it is a tan or  toasty brown in color, but not too dark because it could become bitter in taste.

Turn the heat down to low, just before adding the tomato mix.

Now that your rice is toasted take the tomato mix from your blender and pour that into your pot with the rice. BUT BE CAREFUL! The mixture could bubble too hard and/or the steam could burn you! Be warned.

Stir and let it simmer on low for about 10 minutes or moving around occasionally until the liquid has completely evaporated and you’re left with a tomato concentrate.

Once that has happened go ahead and add 2 cups of water to the pot.

To that add 1.5 teaspoons of salt. Taste the liquid, check for salt. Increasing the salt about ½ teaspoon at a time to adjust to taste.

Add the 2 tablespoons of water to your pot, this helps put back liquids that have or will evaporate during the cooking process and from the taste test we have done to check for flavor.

Cover and let that come to a simmer.

Simmer on low, as low as your stove can go, for approximately 20 minutes or until when you stick a spoon in the center, all the way to the bottom of the pan you see no more liquid. 

Taste a few grains of rice from the center and check for doneness. If it feels grainy add another tablespoon of water, cover and continue to simmer for another 2-3 minutes or until the liquid has evaporated.

If the rice looks good and tastes soft, turn off the heat, uncover, and set aside for about 5-10 minutes.

Fluff with a fork and serve.

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