If you’ve ever been to Chipotle, you know how good cilantro lime rice is and just how much flavor it can add to a meal. Luckily, it’s super easy and budget-friendly to make at home, too, so you take any meal to the next level just by switching out your plain white rice for this Cilantro Lime Rice recipe. It’s bright, flavorful, savory, and absolutely delicious. This Cilantro Lime Rice recipe is so good, in fact, that sometimes I make it a meal simply by adding some black beans and cheese. Done and done!
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What Is Cilantro Lime Rice?
Cilantro lime rice is simply white rice flavored with lime and cilantro, but we throw in a couple more tricks to make it even more delicious and crave-worthy. It’s often served as a side dish with Latin or Tex-Mex meals, adding tons of flavor and color to the plate. But, since cilantro IS the main flavor in this rice, you definitely need to be a cilantro lover to like this recipe. If cilantro isn’t your thing, try our tomato rice instead!
Ingredients for Cilantro Lime Rice
The best part about cilantro lime rice is that you only need a few ingredients and it doesn’t take much longer than cooking plain rice, making it a total win. Here’s what you’ll need to make cilantro lime rice:
- Long Grain White Rice: You can use any long grain white rice for this recipe, conventional, jasmine, or basmati. Conventional is the most budget-friendly, but you’ll get even more flavor with jasmine or basmati. Avoid medium and short grain rices as they tend to be sticky instead of fluffy.
- Chicken Broth: Cooking the rice in chicken broth instead of plain water adds a LOT of flavor to the rice, including a deliciously savory base. If you want to make this vegetarian, look for a vegetarian version of chicken broth rather than a regular vegetable broth, which will turn the rice a brownish color, obscuring the cilantro’s pretty green color.
- Cilantro: This recipe is all about the cilantro! Cilantro gives the rice a really bright and fresh flavor and a beautifully vibrant green color. Fresh cilantro is a must for this recipe, not dried.
- Lime: Fresh lime also adds a bright flavor, and the tanginess of the juice is a nice contrast to the savory chicken broth. We use both the juice and the zest for maximum lime flavor.
- Olive Oil: A little olive oil helps coat the cooked rice to give it richness and prevent it from getting to gummy as you fold in the fresh ingredients.
How to Serve Cilantro Lime Rice
Cilantro lime rice is a great side dish to go with any Latin or Tex-Mex meal, but it’s also great as a base to bowl meals, as a flavorful filling in burritos, or you could even use it as a base for a casserole. Try serving cilantro lime rice with shrimp tacos, cheese enchiladas, burrito bowls, chicken fajitas, or some saucy black beans.
Tip: Don’t Waste the Stems!
When using fresh cilantro, don’t toss the stems! Cilantro stems are very tender and have just as much flavor as the leaves, so as long as they’re thoroughly washed and finely chopped, they can be used right alongside the leaves in recipes like this. So you don’t have to spend time meticulously pulling the leaves from the stems and you’ll have less waste, too!
Cilantro Lime Rice
Servings 6 (about 1 cup each)Ingredients
- 2 cups long grain white rice (uncooked) ($0.52)
- 3 cups chicken broth ($0.32)
- 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro ($0.75)
- 1 lime ($0.59)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.32)
Instructions
- Rinse the rice in cool water then let it drain well. Add the rice and chicken broth to a sauce pot, place a lid on top, and bring it to a full boil over high heat without removing the lid or stirring.
- Once it reaches a full boil, turn the heat down to low, or just above low, and let the rice simmer for 15 minutes (no stirring or removing the lid). After 15 minutes, turn off the heat and let the pot rest for an additional five minutes.
- While the rice is cooking, zest and juice the lime, and finely chop the cilantro. Add 3 tablespoons of the lime juice, ½ teaspoon of the lime zest, and 1 cup of finely chopped cilantro to a bowl with the olive oil and stir to combine.
- Once the rice has rested off of the heat for five minutes, remove the lid and fluff with a fork. Drizzle the cilantro lime mixture over the rice, then gently fold to combine. Make sure not to stir the rice vigorously, or that can cause it to become mushy and sticky.
- Taste the rice and adjust the lime or salt to your liking, then serve with your favorite meal.
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Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!How to Make Cilantro Lime Rice – Step By Step Photos
Start by rinsing 2 cups of uncooked long grain white rice. Let it drain well, then add it to a medium pot with 3 cups of chicken broth. Place a lid on the pot and bring the broth to a full boil over high heat. Once it reaches a full boil, immediately turn the heat down to low, or just slightly above low, to keep the broth at a gentle simmer.
Let the rice simmer for 15 minutes without stirring or removing the lid, then turn the heat off and allow the pot to rest, without removing the lid, for an additional five minutes. Finally, remove the lid and fluff the rice with a fork.
While the rice is cooking, zest and juice one lime. Rinse and finely chop about ½ bunch of fresh cilantro, or about one cup once chopped. Add the chopped cilantro, 3 tablespoons of the juice, and ½ teaspoon of zest to a bowl with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and stir to combine.
Pour the cilantro lime mixture over the cooked rice, then gently fold it to combine. Be careful not to stir vigorously or fold too much as the more the rice is stirred the more it will become sticky. Just fold the ingredients together in a gentle motion.
Serve the cilantro lime rice with your favorite meal and enjoy!
Just made this …yum yum yum. Beth.. have made 3 of your recipes so far 3 winners/keepers. Thank you so much!!
I want to make this rice to go along with the chicken taco bowls. I will be freezing them. Is it ok to freeze, given it is using fresh cilantro? Would cilantro paste be ok as a substitution? I’m just looking to jazz up my rice a bit.
Yeah, the cilantro will “cook” a bit upon reheating, but I think it will still be great. I haven’t ever used cilantro paste, but it will probably work. Just check the ingredients to see if it has extra salt or anything that might affect the flavor.
I somehow screwed this up (it burned on the bottom of the pot and other cooking quirks) and it is still delicious. I heated it from frozen today and the lime flavour really came through (I put like twice as much lime zest in it as called for).
That can happen if the cookware you’re using is thin or not a good quality because it won’t conduct heat well and heat the pot evenly. OR sometimes that happens if the heat is turned up just a bit too high. Cooking rice is a little like riding a bike, you have to get to know the nuances of your stove and cookware, but once you do, it’s a breeze! :)
Made this with your chicken enchiladas. It was really good! I’ll be sure to make this again in the future. ^o^
I made this with basmati cooked in water (we ran out of Better Than Bouillon) and served it in burritos with the filling from Beef & Pineapple Enchiladas. I did need to salt it to bring out the full flavor of the cilantro and lime but it was pretty good.
I am making freezer burritos with the shredded taco beef. I was going to use this rice instead of the plain old white stuff. Do you think the chicken base in the rice would make the beef flavor taste not quite right? Or maybe the cilantro lime mix would be more noticeable and the chicken base would have more of a subtle flavor?
Yes, I think using a chicken base would be fine and not over powering :)
I just. can’t. stop. making this!
I keep running to the store every other day to buy everything. Even my cilantro-hating husband likes this because the lime overpowers the cilantro taste.
I don’t have a zester so I cut of the skin with the knife and threw it in the blender. It would have been better if I had left it out and just used the juice. I lost the O-ring for the blender …should probably double check that. Besides that it’s a super good recipe.
Anon – The zest of the lime is the very top layer of the skin that is dark green. It gives a lot of “lime” flavor, whereas the juice provides tartness. To get the zest without any of the white stuff underneath (which can be bitter), use a very fine cheese grater or a tool made especially for “zesting” to gently scrape off the top green layer. I do that first and then cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice out.
There is a good picture of me zesting a lemon in this post. I hope that helps!
I’m way new to cooking if it involves more that about 3 ingredients…when it says line juice and zest, what does that actually mean?
Thanks, Beth. Will definitely use the zest next time. I’m still enjoying the rice today with your pulled pork – made a rice bowl, so to speak, out of it. Very tasty!
Sandy – yes, the zest makes a HUGE difference :P In fact, almost all of the lime flavor comes from the zest, the juice just adds some tartness. Try it next time with the zest and you’ll be blown away! :D
Tried this recipe yesterday and it’s as easy as can be. But I’m not sure why it didn’t totally work. I didn’t have any limes, we squeeze lemons and limes and keep the juice refrigerated, so I didn’t have any zest. Could the absence of that make that big a difference in taste? We didn’t get much lime nor cilantro initially. However, the longer it sat, it seemed to be better. I could taste the cilantro even through the pulled pork I mixed it with later in the evening. I’m thinking next time I’ll cut the rice amount in half but keep the other measurements as is. We love this type of rice, so will keep at it!
I think it would still taste pretty good :) You might want to add some salt too.
damn i have some regular left over rice but was only cooked with water not the broth would it still taste ok? :/
Anon – remove the zest from the lime by using a zester or a fine cheese grater to scrape off just the green part of the skin (try not to get any of the white part). Then cut it open and squeeze the juice out. That’s what I meant by “zest and juice of one lime.” Sorry it was so vague!