Rice is something I serve a few times a week as a side with supper. It can get boring very quickly to eat the same kind of rice all the time, so I often make different kinds of pilafs and use different types of rice. As usual, when I was deciding what ingredients to use in the pilaf, I used items that I had in my kitchen that needed to be used up. This time it was asparagus and mushrooms. You can swap out the vegetables in pilafs for almost any type of vegetable, and if you’re just starting out with cooking you can definitely start with frozen vegetables such as corn. Be sure to still add in onion though!

A big reason that I like pilafs is because it’s very easy to sneak more vegetables into your diet and it makes you feel as if you’ve eaten much more rice than you have. If you serve a rice pilaf side dish with vegetables at supper than you’re going to end up eating more vegetables than you would have.

Pilaf can be a quick side dish to make, or it can take a bit of time depending on what rice you use. If you want good taste and texture I suggest using the rice that needs to simmer for at least 20ish minutes. Those 5 and 10 minute rice in my opinion look funny and have a terrible texture. They are also less nutritious because a lot of the nutrients have been stripped from the grain to make the cooking time faster. However, if it’s a work night or you’ve got a busy schedule you can go ahead and cook with the quick rice.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup black (purple) rice

1/4 cup brown rice

1 onion

1 cup water

1 tsp “better than bouillon” (or 1 cup chicken broth)

6 small asparagus

4 medium mushrooms

Directions:

Put black rice, water and bouillon paste (or chicken broth) into a medium pot. If you used chicken broth do not add the 1 cup of water. Also make sure to use the amount of water listed to use on the package of the rice. 1 cup of water was the amount called for with my rice. Bring that water to a boil then add the brown rice (This is because the black rice I use takes longer to cook). Add in all the cut up vegetables and simmer for 20-30 minutes until there is no water left.

Serve with anything really. I prefer it with mixed vegetables and pan seared salmon.

Makes: 3 servings

Time to make: 20-40 minutes depending on type of rice used

Nutrition: 119 calories, 26g carbs, 1g fat

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Tagged: Cooking, Food, health, Recipes, rice, supper