Instant Pot Brown Rice
This Instant Pot Brown Rice recipe changed my whole game of making soft and fluffy brown rice forever, and I'm never turning back. It's quick and super easy. Fool-proof. You'll never have to deal with hard and dry brown rice again.
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I never attempted to make brown rice until I had to change my diet for a medical reason and was advised to switch from white rice to brown rice. As an Asian and I cannot live without my rice. I sometimes eat rice for all three meals. So giving up rice was not an option. I had to learn to make brown rice.
I was not happy the first few times I tried. The rice took forever to cook, and it was not as soft as my beloved white rice. I struggled with the water ratio as well since brown rice needs a little more water than white rice. Eventually learned to make perfect brown rice in both my rice cooker and the Instant Pot. I use a rice cooker for smaller quantities, and when I need to cook more than 1 cup of rice, I use my Instant Pot for that. You can view my rice cooker brown rice recipe here.
Brown rice cooking time in Instant Pot
Brown rice, unlike white rice, still has the bran and the germ attached. Bran is tougher, has lots of fiber and act as a protective layer. So when you cook brown rice, it takes longer for water and heat to soften and penetrate the bran layer in order to cook the starchy center.
For white rice, you can use the Instant Pot 'Rice' pre-set. However, since brown rice takes longer to cook, the 'Rice' preset doesn't work very well. You need to adjust the time and pressure for this manually. For this, I press "pressure cooker" preset. And then manually adjust the pressure to 'High' and time to 22 minutes.
Also, very important, after cooking the rice, do NOT release the pressure. Let the pressure release naturally for 15 minutes (or at least 10 minutes). This will allow the rice grains to absorb all the extra moisture.
Water Ratio
When you cook brown rice, you also need to add more water, compared to white rice. For the Instant Pot Brown Rice recipe, I use 2 cup of rice : 2 1/2 cup water ratio. This works for almost all the brown rice vatieties.
Serving Ideas
2 cups of uncooked rice yield about 5 1/2 - 6 cups of cooked rice. This is usually enough for 5 - 6 generous servings of rice.
I like to use brown rice for my rice bowls and when I make rice and curry. One of my favorites is this Bang Bang chicken rice bowl. I also love it with red lentil curry, chicken curry and green bean curry.
You can also use them for burritos. Brown rice, especially brown basmati is excellent for fried rice as well.
This Instant Pot Brown Rice recipe changed my whole game of making soft and fluffy brown rice forever, and I'm never turning back. It's super easy. Fool-proof. You'll never have to deal with hard and dry brown rice again.
- 2 cups Brown Basmati Rice
- 2 1/2 cups Water
- 1 tsp Salt
- 2 small bay leaves (optional)
Add rice to the removable inner pot of your Instant Pot. Rinse rice 2 - 3 times to remove any excess starch and impurities. Drain all the water. Wipe the outside of the pot to remove any water and place it back in the Instant Pot.
Add water (2 cups rice: 2 1/2 cups water ratio), salt, and bay leaves.
Close the lid (Make sure the knob is in the 'seal' position.) Press 'Pressure cook' button, select high pressure, then set the timer for 22 minutes. Press 'Start'. When the cooking is done, let it sit for 15 minutes to depressurize naturally. After 15 minutes, if there's more pressure in the pot, you can manually release it.
Discard bay leaves. Fluff the rice with a spoon and serve.
