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.
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.
- Then take back to the heat and add the Ginger Garlic Paste, as an option Cumin Seed Powder and Turmeric Seed Powder. Stir fry the whole content for a minute and then add the green coriander paste which you prepared earlier.
- 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.