Cilantro Lime Rice Recipe is a vibrant & flavorful side dish, which can be accompanied by other main dishes that may contain vegetable, meat or seafood.
So that your cilantro lime rice recipe turns out great, you won't need to cook endless hours in the kitchen.
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It's not rocket science!
I have an easy trick to prepare cilantro lime rice from scratch, see the recipe further below.
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Cilantro Lime Rice in my realm is in the same category as the sunny yellow lemon rice, the enthralling cumin rice or the natural-looking clove rice.
I love these aromatic rice side dishes, they give character to a meal with a lot of flavors!
Flavored rice side dishes are common in India for example, and there are countless variations besides Pulao rice, which I would like to highlight separately in other posts in the future.
Side dishes such as this Cilantro Lime Rice are versatile and you can serve them up with different main dish variations.
More serving ideas below the recipe card
Did you know, Cilantro in some places in the world is better known as fresh Coriander. 💡
This Cilantro Lime Rice Recipe has a grass green/yellowish color to it.
The trick is to turn fresh cilantro leaves into a paste and enrich it with other flavors including the bright yellow turmeric powder (also known as Curcuma).
The Turmeric and the lime flavors lighten up the rice!
Besides that I also add some ginger garlic paste, mustard seeds and cumin powder to make the cilantro lime rice recipe aromatic and more flavorful.
If you don't have these ingredients at hand you can skip them but I would suggest you add them all as they really enhance the dish 10 folds!
To make the cilantro lime rice use only super fresh cilantro leaves, either the flat cilantro variations or the fatter cilantro leaves, it doesn't matter.
Both kinds have the same flavor.
To make the Cilantro Lime Rice Recipe...
Place the freshly washed cilantro leaves into a blender with onion and turn into a paste with some water.
Cook the rice, fry some spices, add the green paste, cook and mix the cooked rice into it. Voila!
Enjoy your still warm aromatic Cilantro lime rice!
🧰 Tools and things to assist you in cooking fluffy Cilantro Rice:
- Instant Pot - To cook the rice fluffy in the rice cooker function
- Hand Blender - to blend small quantity to a smooth cilantro paste
- or a bigger powerful blender if you double the recipe
👁️ More Rice side dishes:
Dear reader do you like flavored rice side dishes?
Please let us know in a comment further below, we love hearing from you! 🙂
The post Cilantro lime rice was first posted on the 15th February 2017 and was updated and enhanced ever since.
Global Food Recipes
with Spices and Herbs
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📖 Recipe
Aromatic Cilantro Lime Rice Recipe
Ingredients
For the Rice:
- 1 cup Basmati Rice
- 2 cups Water
For the Paste:
- 1 Onion quartered
- ½ cup Cilantro Fresh aka Coriander leaves
- ¼ cup Water
- 2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 Teaspoon Brown Mustard Seeds brown variety
- 1 Tablespoon Ginger + Garlic *see Notes
- ½ Teaspoon Cumin Seeds Ground optional
- ½ Teaspoon Turmeric Ground
- pinch Salt
- Juice of one Lime
- Cilantro Fresh to garnish
Instructions
- Wash your rice well and cook it for about 12 minutes or until it's soft and cooked through. Refer to packet instructions. Strain the rice and keep aside once cooked.
- Add the Cilantro leaves and onion quarters to the blender jar with the 50 milliliter Water and blend to a smooth paste. If you choose to add the mustard seeds, add to a pot the olive oil and mustard seeds. Carefully heat up and pop the mustard seeds. You need to keep the heat steady for about a minute so that the mustard seeds get "cooked" in that time. While doing that, the mustard seeds will pop up and emit a nutty flavor. Once you can get that nutty aroma, remove from the heat. At that point I always let it just cool for a minute before continuing the cooking of the paste.
- Stir cook for about 4 minutes or until the paste is done. Season with salt. Take from the heat and let cool, then add at the end the lime juice and mix well before adding the cooked rice. Carefully mix the rice in so that everything is well combined, garnish with some chopped fresh clean coriander and serve hot.
Notes
- Use fresh ginger and garlic with a ratio of ⅓ ginger and ⅔ garlic or use Asian ginger garlic paste, which you can buy too.
Melanie says
I really wish that people would actually write comments about how a particular dish turned out vs how it looks or how much they're anxious to make it. It's annoying to read all these meaningless "fluff" comments! It's not just on this blog - it's everywhere. When I find a recipe on a blog, I want to hear who else has made it and how it turned out - not how beautiful the pictures look!
Helene Dsouza says
Hi Melanie, I appreciate your feedback and I understand your point of view.
I have taken up a new approach towards submitted comments at the beginning of the year and have been trimming and removing not useful submitted comments. Newer posts reflect just that, however, older posts are being cleaned up as we speak and over the next months this should be completed. Thank you for your understanding and please let me know if you have any other concerns.
Claire | The Simple, Sweet Life says
Cilantro is one of my favorite herbs. Seriously, I'd put it in EVERYTHING if I could. I'm definitely going to have to give this a try!
lauren says
Love the vibrant color of this rice! The pop of green is so alluring. This would make an awesome accompaniment to our next taco night!
Karyl | Karyl's Kulinary Krusade says
Whenever I think about cilantro lime rice I think about the stuff you get at Chipotle...I must admit, I love that you admit turmeric to this, to get that beautiful golden color. Wonderful recipe!
prasanna hede says
I love how you cook Indian good better than anyone else! How flavorful is this rice,I need rice at-least once in a day and need to try something like this so aromatic than regular biryani and pulao.
Neli | Delicious Meets Healthy says
What a delicious cilantro lime rice recipe!
Renee Gardner says
I've never added the ginger and turmeric to my cilantro lime rice, but I love the color and the added flavor would probably taste so much better than mine! I'll have to try this - maybe with your butter chicken recipe.
Patti says
This recipe looks delicious. I love rice, It's a blank slate that can be so easily transformed into something different for every meal. I have bookmarked this recipe to try later, and I want to thank you for so clearly explaining the other names of spices. I knew about coriander and cilantro, but I have seen curcuma on other websites and had no idea it was turmeric. Thank you for such clear and understandable instructions.
Jenni LeBaron says
I love all of the bright flavors that went into this and the color is fantastic! This would definitely punch up any main dish as a wonderful, flavorful side!
Cathleen @ A Taste of Madness says
Unfortunately my fiance doesn't like cilantro. But that just means more for me, right? 🙂
Ben Myhre says
I really like how this rice dish looks! I would definitely eat this.
Paige says
Looks beautiful love the colors, bet it's delish too!
Monica Le says
oh this Cilantro lime Rice looks so healthy and delicious… wish I had some right now!
Smita Mehta says
Step by step representation with the images are really very helpful. rice is something which we can have with dal or other gravy with veg pr non-veg. I loved reading this food blog.
John/Kitchen Riffs says
Love the color of this! And love the flavor of coriander. This is exactly the sort of dish I really like -- thanks so much!
palak bhatti says
wow awesome recipe i love it
Agness of Run Agness Run says
Helene, your gorgeous flavoured aromatic coriander rice looks phenomenal! I would love to have it for tomorrow's lunch!
Shashi at RunninSrilankan says
Hi Helene, your gorgeous flavored aromatic coriander rice reminds me of my mom's with mustard seeds, cardamom pods and whole cloves in it too.
Hema says
Loving the beautiful color of this rice, perfectly done..
Heather | All Roads Lead to the Kitchen says
That apron is so cute - love that it has your logo on it! And this rice sounds perfect, I'll have to make some to go with dinner sometime this week..
Meeta says
Like you I love all the flavored rice we Indians have. Never a boring kind of rice dish for our meals. This looks great Helen!
Lucy @ Supergoldenbakes says
It's a stunning colour and the flavours sound wonderful. What a great side dish.
Cristie | Little Big H says
I love the sounds and look of this dish. I like rice anything so I know I would love this. Saving this one to make asap.
Eva Taylor says
Gorgeous colour. I adore coriander and usually have a bunch in my fridge, this is a perfect way to use it up!
Florentina says
Looks so delicious, I don't like coriander but this recipe is very inviting so I think I'm gonna try it. Thank you for sharing! Have a nice day!
Flo
Angie@Angie's Recipes says
These days I don't eat as much rice and other grains as I used to..but I always love coriander and parsley rice...so fragrant and delicious!