Instant Pot Brown Rice Pilaf

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Instant Pot Brown Rice Pilaf. How to cook your favourite brown rice pilaf in the instant pot. A delicious gluten free, weight watchers and vegan instant pot brown rice pilaf that is loaded with seasonal vegetables and flavoured brown rice.  

Instant Pot Brown Rice Pilaf

I remember back in 2000, when I couldn’t cook and had cravings for rice, I would cook it from a packet.

I thought rice looked way too difficult to make and what if it wasn’t cooked right or if the rice was too dry because it had been starved of water?

I grabbed one of those golden vegetable rice packs and tried cooking it in the microwave.

It was a total failure.

I couldn’t even cook rice from a packet.

Looking back, I know now that it was not enough liquid and that my microwave was more powerful than the one mentioned on the back in the instructions.

Did you know that rice being starved of liquid and timings being wrong, is the reason why so many people fail when they try to cook instant pot brown rice!

You need that formula that works.

You need the instant pot brown rice cooking times and brown rice to liquid ratio to be spot on.

Get those right and you will be a pro at making instant pot brown rice and will be able to go from instant pot brown rice to making flavoursome dishes such as this instant pot brown rice pilaf that I am showing you how to make today.

What Is Pilaf?

You might not have heard of a pilaf. In fact, it wasn’t until about 3 years ago when I was getting into using the instant pot, that I first heard of a pilaf.

Probably because it is not popular in Europe and instead as Europeans, we would think of it as golden vegetable rice.

A pilaf by definition:

• Sautéed vegetables
• Indian spices
• Grains such as brown rice
• Yummy flavoursome broth

Many pilafs that you will try, will be very different because we all have different broths, different Indian spices, different vegetables and different types of rice.

The instant pot brown rice pilaf that we are making for you today is a vegan version, whilst many include chicken.

We’re also including turmeric in our vegan pilaf to give it that wonderful bright colour of India.

Instant Pot Vegetable Rice

Another way of thinking of an instant pot pilaf is thinking of it as an Indian instant pot vegetable rice.

The instant pot brown rice is well seasoned, and this gives it a wonderful flavour and makes your brown rice very tasty.

You can then serve it with one of your many favourite Indian main dishes. Such as our slow cooker butter chicken or our instant pot vegetable curry.

Though I love to enjoy an instant pot pilaf as a main dish and have it for lunch on days when I want lunch in a hurry.

Instant Pot Brown Rice 1 Cup

In our recipe today for a brown rice pilaf we are using just 1 cup of brown rice. The reason is that I didn’t have any more left!

I was determined to cook as many different instant pot brown rice recipes as I could from the generous bag of organic brown rice I received.

I was cooking every instant pot brown rice dish with 2 cups of rice but panicking that I still wanted to cook many more I halved it to 1 cup.

This was great for experimenting as I learnt that the cook time didn’t change whether you did 1 cup of brown rice or 2 cups.

Just remember:

• 1 Cup = 1.25 cups liquid
• 2 Cups = 2.5 cups liquid
• 3 Cups = 3.75 cups liquid

Just stick to the ratio of 1 cup of brown rice to 1.25 cups of liquid and your brown rice in the instant pot will be perfect every time.

This is also great to know if you want to double up your instant pot brown rice recipe and don’t want to be worrying about what this will mean to the rest of the ingredients.

How To Cook Brown Rice Pilaf In Instant Pot?

Cooking instant pot brown rice pilaf is EASY. You can start off by sautéing your vegetables, then add in other ingredients, add the lid and come back to a perfect vegetable brown rice.

Instant Pot Brown Rice Pilaf Instructions:

1. Sauté vegetables with extra virgin olive oil.
2. Add vegetable broth, drained brown rice and seasoning.
3. Stir, pressure cook, fluff with a fork and serve.

Yes. It is that SIMPLE. No annoying cooking stages that take forever or over or undercooked brown rice.

Instant Pot Brown Rice Using Rice Button

Many people assume that to make brown rice in the instant pot that you need to use the rice button.

This is not true.

That is because instant pot brown rice recipes require high pressure and the instant pot rice button is set to 12 minutes on low pressure.

How Long To Cook Brown Rice In Instant Pot?

The cooking time for brown rice pilaf in the instant pot is JUST 17 minutes. Slightly less than the 18 minutes that we use in many of our instant pot brown rice recipes because you have a lot of vegetables and the rice quantity is not that high.

You also need to plan for 5 minutes natural pressure release after the 17 minute cook time.

Also, think of time for the instant pot to go to pressure and the sauté of the vegetables that you do before placing the lid on the instant pot.

Instant Pot Brown Rice Pilaf #1 Tip

In many instant pot brown rice recipes and other similar instant pot grains that you pressure cook, there is a lot of talk about greasing your instant pot first.

That you add a small layer of coconut oil to the bottom and sides of the instant pot so that it is easy to clean once you have served up your brown rice.

BUT when you make an instant pot brown rice pilaf this is NOT necessary. This is because the vegetable sauté, before you add the brown rice will leave a natural greasing of the instant pot.

So never clean out the instant pot between the sauté and the adding the rice.

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