Cilantro Lime Rice (Chipotle Copycat)

This Cilantro Lime Rice is a Chipotle Copycat that tastes far and above better than the restaurant version! It’s simple to make at home and perfect paired with any Mexican inspired meal. We love using it in both taco bowls and burrito bowls.

This rice is the perfect flavor packed base to make just about any taco bowl or burrito bowl of your dreams. In all seriousness though, we love using either sweet potatoes or steamed rice for a base to build any kind of Mexican inspired bowl, (find all my recipes linked below).

However adding the cilantro-lime combo to steamed rice just takes it right over the top. And you might find yourself eating Mexican bowls every night for dinner for weeks in a row. It’s definitely been the case in our house for the past few weeks! This rice is just so tasty, you’ll find yourself wanting to make it quite often.

And while I mostly make this for Mexican recipes, it doesn’t need to be limited to that. The cilantro-lime combo goes so well with other cuisines as well, particularly Asian recipes. So definitely try this rice out with my Healthy Orange Chicken or my Teriyaki Sheet Pan Salmon!

Let’s get started by talking about the ingredients for this Cilantro Lime Rice!

• Avocado oil – is what I like to use as a neutral cooking oil to sauté the onion and garlic. You can use olive oil or any cooking oil you’d like here.
• Onion & Garlic – briefly sautéed together adds a nice savory and flavor backdrop to the finished rice.
• Rice – I use long grain white rice here, usually Jasmine because I have a large bag of it. But really any long grain white rice including Basmati is really tasty here. The liquid amounts in this recipe have been formulated for white rice only. But you can use brown rice and adjust the liquid and cooking time according to how you would normally cook brown rice. The liquid to brown rice ratio is 2:1 and the cooking time is usually double at around 45 minutes. All the flavors here work perfectly with brown rice as well if you choose to go that route.
• Water or broth – I prefer water in this recipe rather than broth because I feel like it keeps the cilantro lime flavors clean and not slightly muted with the flavor that broth adds. But I have used both, so I would suggest figuring out which way you prefer because it’s just a matter of personal taste.
• Cilantro – chopped fresh cilantro adds so much flavor when it’s mixed in at the end of the cooking time. But if you really hate cilantro, you could always make this recipe without it and call it ‘Lime Rice’. The lime flavor is fantastic in rice if you really despise cilantro!
• Lime zest – is what makes the magic happen in this recipe because it gives an intense flavor to the rice.
• Lime juice – underscores the flavor of the lime zest and adds a bit of bright flavor to the finished rice.

Ok now let’s dive in for how to make this recipe step by step!

Step 1:

Prep the ingredients. Start by washing the cilantro. I like to use a salad spinner to dry off any excess water before chopping it.

Step 2:

Mince the garlic and finely dice half an onion.

Step 3:

Heat the Instant Pot on the sauté setting or place a pan on the stove on medium heat. Add the oil and sauté the garlic and onion until softened and lightly browned like the above photo. That touch of brown caramelization adds an enormous amount of tasty flavor to the rice as it cooks.

Step 4:

Add the rice and water to the pan or Instant Pot. Then for the Instant Pot, select the ‘rice’ button and it will do the rest. Or for the stove top, bring the rice to a boil, then cover and lower the heat to maintain a simmer.

Important Note: The recipe below indicates how much water to use for the Instant Pot vs. the stove top. The Instant Pot ratio is 1:1 and stove top is 1:1.5 rice to water.

Step 5:

While the rice cooks, chop the cilantro, zest the lime, then juice it.

Step 6:

When the rice is done cooking, add the cilantro, lime zest, and lime juice to the rice. Mix to combine, then season to taste with sea salt and serve!

What to serve with Cilantro Lime Rice:

• Healthy Chicken Sheet Pan Fajitas
• Enchilada Chicken and Zucchini Skillet Dinner
• Jalapeno Cilantro Lime Chicken
• Instant Pot Carnitas
• Instant Pot Beef Barbacoa
• Slow Cooker Salsa Beef
• Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken

How to store and reheat this rice:

We like to meal prep some of the recipes below to ‘build a bowl’ throughout the week. This rice will keep for 4-5 days in the fridge. However rice does get dry and hard over time. So to reheat you can place it in a pot with a touch of water in the bottom of the pan. Bring that water to a boil, then turn the heat off and let it steam the rice.

We don’t have a microwave, but that’s an option as well. And what we most often do is to heat whatever protein we’ve made together with the rice in a fry pan. This is super quick and easy, and brings the rice back to a nice, soft texture.

This Cilantro Lime Rice is part of my ‘build a bowl’ series:

• Chipotle Chicken (Chipotle Copycat)
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• Easy Fajita Veggies
• Pico de Gallo (Easy & Authentic)
• The Best Guacamole
• Easy Fire Roasted Blender Salsa
• Instant Pot Queso (Vegan – Paleo – Dairy Free)

Choose as many of the above recipes as you’d like to mix and match and create a taco bowl or burrito bowl. You can also add all sorts of toppings like corn, black beans, grated cheese, and sour cream.

I really hope you enjoy this Cilantro Lime Rice, it will add amazing fresh flavor to your Mexican dinners! And if you do get a chance to make it, I hope you’ll leave me a comment/rating below. I always love hearing from you here! Also for lots more Mexican inspired recipes, head over to the recipe index.

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