Mexican Rice for 1


Made with 1/4 cup of rice. I grew up on mexican rice my mom frequently made but today I will show you how to make a small batch portion. For 1! No tomato canned sauce welcome here! I'll say why at the end of my post. 

Best served as a side of your mini dinner with enchiladas and flour tortillas. Will work on a small batch beans recipe. I'm sure that won't be hard. 

Ingredients:

1/4 cup rice
Dash of oil
1/4 cup water

Molcajete Ingredients:

1 garlic clove
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp peppercorns
1/8 tsp cumin whole 

1/4 cup water 

Blender ingredients:

1 Roma tomato
1/8 onion 

Directions:

1. In molcajete grind the listed ingredients. I don't have a molcajete but I was able to score a mortar and pestle for 5 bucks at a flea market. Lookin' like dis:

*While I did have peppercorns I did NOT have whole cumin. I just added equal sized cumin ground  to it and it was fine. 

2. When blended, add 1/4 cup of water and slowly incorporate everything. Set aside. 

3. In blender add tomato (cute into half or quarter), small chunk of onion and add mocaljete ingredients. Pulse and blend until well incorporated.

4. In a 2 qt pot or sauce pan, toast rice (make sure you rinse and let dry before toasting!). About 10 minutes. Don't put high heat.

5. Add blender ingredients plus additional 1/4 cup of water and boil for about 3-5 minutes.

6. Cover and lower heat for 15-20 minutes.

7. Remove from heat for additional 10-15 ingredients before eating. Optional of course but recommended. Super okay to forego this step. I've done both and it's perfectly fine either way! 

I must admit, I normally make family sized mexican rice (made with 1 cup of rice) the "lazy way". By that I mean I make it with tomato sauce + plus using same can to fill with water  AND measure a new cup of water to dissolve: 1/2 tbsp EACH of Tomato Bouillon, Chicken bouillon and mexican rice season from this brand:

Sometimes I chop 1 Roma tomato and half an onion or green bell pepper and crush 1 garlic clove while rice is toasting (only the garlic, not the veggies nor tomato). Boil for 5 minutes. Cover and lower heat to 3 for about 15-20 minutes. 

Can be bought online on their official brand website or on Amazon. It's totally cheaper directly on the brand website obviously with the caveat of free shipping on $50. Worth it, trust me. I stock up on their restaurant sized spices and other mixes that I use frequently. 

Not exactly healthy nor authentic I know but it's super yummy and I multitask a lot so it was an easy short cut. However, first test recipe and I am in LOVE. Next time I make family size mexican rice, I am totally grinding up my ingredients now and banishing tomato sauce (only sparingly anyway).

The reason why I didn't include tomato sauce is because of potential waste. Why open a can but only using 1/4 of it?! Of course, you 🥫(couldn't help it!) but this also means you will have to either freeze the leftovers or find a way to use it right away before it expires. So what TF are you going to do with 3/4 of a can??? Unless you want to make 3 more portions of mexican rice (and at that point, might as well have made the whole batch at the same time anyway) it's pointless and increases your carbon footprint if that is something one cares about. It's just a whole can of worms and becoming contradictory. 

Like I said, this is something I absolutely want to start doing rather than using bouillon. Gives you just as much flavor without added MSG. 

Micro scaled recipe from:

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