One of the things that I was very pleasantly surprised by was how well my pressure cooker works for cooking grain rice, brown rice, quinoa, barley, etc. The grains cook in a much shorter amount of time, with no possibility of boiling over, and seem to come out very fluffy and soft, especially with brown rice. My husband and kids would only eat brown rice begrudgingly when I cooked it before and now they shovel it in (literally I have a teenage son!) with abandon.

I have decided to get rid of the rice cooker because my result when cooking rice in a rice cooker was that by the time the rice cooker shut off, I would have a layer of dried-out rice on the bottom of the cooker that would then go to waste. I hate to throw food away! I’ve NEVER had a problem with cooking grains in a pressure cooker.

And the nice thing is, being able to cook rice in just a few minutes, means that my chicken and rice casserole ends up on the table more often, which makes my family VERY happy!

I’ll share my recipe for Chicken and Rice Casserole in my next post, but first, let’s cover the quick and easy way to cook rice in the Pressure Cooker you’ll never cook it another way again!

Pressure Cooker Rice

Ingredients:
Rice – 2 cups, rinsed
Water – 3 cups
Salt – to taste

Instructions:

Measure rice (I usually cook 2 cups to have enough for one meal, plus some leftovers). Rinse rice in water (I rinse mine under running water in a fine mesh strainer.

Place the rice in a metal bowl that will fit into your pressure cooker, along with the appropriate amount of water, for jasmine rice (my favorite!) I normally use 1.5 parts water to 1 part rice. So for 2 cups of rice, I use 3 cups of water. Cover the bowl tightly with foil.

Fashion a 2-3″ wide strip of foil (about a foot long) and place it into the pressure cooker rack with the ends sticking up. Place the bowl over the strip of foil, and ensure that the strips can be reached. By doing this the foil strip is sandwiched between the bowl and the steamer rack. I’ll usually scrunch the ends a little bit to make them easier to grab. This strip will be used to pull the bowl out of the pressure cooker easily.

Put 2 cups water into your pressure cooker (or, the minimum amount specified by your manufacturer) and cover. Bring to pressure. Reduce heat, and cook at pressure for 7 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally. Remove the bowl of rice, fluff with a fork, and serve.