How to Cook Perfect Instant Pot Rice

This post shows how to cook the perfect Instant Pot rice every time! This easy method can be used in other types of pressure cookers as well; has conversions for brown, white, basmati, and jasmine rice.

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After publishing so many Instant Pot recipes on this blog that I've lost count, you would think that I had covered everything, right? Wrong. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I had never walked through the simplest (but most used) Instant Pot recipe I have – rice!

Once you cook rice in the Instant Pot you'll never use anything else to cook it. It takes a fraction of the time of prepping it on the stove or in the microwave and comes out absolutely perfect every time. With the method I've outlined below, it's never crunchy, but never mushy either. It has this perfect balance of texture that complements any main dish.

With this method, I'm cooking only rice in the pressure cooking (this particular night, I was making it to go with the sheet pan dinner collection I've been working on recently). Sometimes I use the Instant Pot just for the rice and sometimes I cook it along with another dish using the pot in pot method. I talked a little bit more about that in my big Instant Pot Freezer Meal Boot Camp post – basically, you just put a trivet and a small baking dish on top of your main dish and fill it with any other item you need to cook for your meal. It's great for rice, potatoes, and even veggies. You can click here to see more about that method.

For now, let's get to cooking rice alone in the Instant Pot!

This is more about the method/ratios than an actual recipe, but I'll show you how much of each item I typically use. I start with 1.5 cups of rice. I use white in this case, but basmati, jasmine, brown, etc. can be used as well (see adjusted cook times below).

Here's the secret to perfect Instant Pot rice: use a 1:1.25 ratio of rice to water. That means, if you're using 1.5 cups of rice, you'll pour just shy of 2 cups of water into your cooker with the rice. (The ratio doesn't have to be perfectly measured, you can kind of round and guesstimate).

I also put a drizzle of olive oil (I don't measure, maybe about a tablespoon) and a couple of pinches of salt in my pot.

It doesn't have to be completely stirred together before putting your lid on, but I do like to give it a couple of stirs just to eliminate any clumps.

Then, simply lock that lid on! I use the manual setting on 8 minutes for white/basmati/jasmine rice and 15 minutes for brown rice.

Let the cook cycle run and allow the pressure to naturally release for 5-10 minutes before manually releasing remaining pressure and removing the lid.

Finally, simply fluff with a fork. I do turn the warm setting off as soon as I take the lid off…it tends to make the rice stick to the bottom of the pan if you don't. You can either take the inner pot out of the Instant Pot or put rice in another dish at this point.

See? Easy peasy! This is something that you can quickly cook in the background while you're working on your main dish…it couldn't be a simpler side dish.

And, just in case you're in need of a few main courses – there are two new packs in the Freezer Meal Boot Camp collection! The first two kid-friendly boot camps are now available.

These sets of 10 meals each have been designed for the kids (and kids at heart 😉) in your family. I've used simpler ingredients and seasoning in these meals, with flavors that kids and adults will love! I've had so many requests for kid-friendly packs over the years, and I'm excited to finally be sharing these sets with you.

As always, you'll get grocery lists, full prep day instructions to walk you through each step of creating your freezer meals, and even printable labels for your freezer meals with recipe cards to save for later use. Save time, save money, and save sanity over the summer by having dinner ready to cook each day – once you start using this method of dinner prep, you'll never look back!

Get more information about all of my Freezer Meal Boot Camps by clicking here.

Happy pressure cooking, friends!