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If you love the restaurant-style  Mexican food then this easy Mexican rice is what you will love. If you love to call it Spanish rice or Mexican rice but the final dish is so amazing and easy.

I love Mexican food and have shared many recipes here. Have you checked them? 

You can serve this rice and enjoy this recipe of homemade Mexican rice with baja fish tacos, sriracha shrimp tacos, spicy shrimp tacos, chicken street tacos, shrimp fajitas, chicken taquitos or serve with refried beans and sour cream too.


The best part of this recipe is that you do not need any prep work to be done the previous night or do not need to cook for hours, just takes a total of 30mins to fix dinner! Isn't that awesome?

Easy Mexican Rice

You will love how quick and delicious this rice turns out to be!

What goes in to make the best homemade rice?

You will need some basic ingredients easily available in your pantry to fix this recipe.

This recipe of Mexican rice can be customized to add the ingredients available to you. Such as you can add spices to add flavors to the rice by choosing between chicken bouillon, tomato bouillon, chicken stock, or vegetable stock to suit your taste.

Here I have used red onion, tomato, chilis/jalapeno, garlic, but you can customize to add corn kernels, bell peppers, black beans, carrot, as you like. 


Also if you like you can add chicken stock to the dish or just plain water, but if add water then to add flavor to the recipe add chicken bouillon or tomato bouillon.

If you choose to go with vegetable stock to make a vegetarian Mexican rice recipe then you can add vegetarian bouillon for flavor too.

What type of rice is used in Mexican food?

The best rice to use for this recipe is long grain rice. One of the most common and easily available long grain rice you will find in most Asian stores is Basmati rice. 


Long grain rice gets nice and fluffy and does not stick to each other. The best way to get the rice fluffy and well-cooked is by soaking the rice for at least 15 mins in water before cooking it. The longer you soak it the better as the rice drinks up water and when cooked it gets very fluffy and soft to eat. 

How do you make Mexican rice from scratch?

Firstly rinse and soak the rice in sufficient water.

Next, add oil in the pan and saute veggies (onion, chilis, garlic, and tomato) till they are soft.

Next, rinse the rice well with water to remove starch from rice and drain the rice well making sure there is no water in the rice.

Add the rice to the pan and saute it till it is toasted or you see it slightly brown.

What other flavorings can I use in this recipe?

What is the difference between Mexican rice and Spanish rice?

Most people say that Mexican rice and Spanish are the same but there is a slight difference in the recipe, as in Spanish rice we use saffron threads instead of cumin and the final rice dish turns out to be bright yellowish than orange.

How to make fluffy Mexican rice?

To make the rice fluffy firstly soak rice in water for at least 15mins before cooking the rice. You can also soak the rice for more time optionally.

Rinse the rice well with water to remove starch from rice that will tend to make it sticky when cooked.


The next thing that works to make the rice fluffy is by letting the rice sit covering the pan once it is cooked and after few minutes fluff the rice with a fork.

What to do with leftover Mexican rice?

We can always use leftover rice to make a burrito, taco, fajitas bowl, or even taco salad.

Can you freeze Mexican rice?

Yes, you can freeze the rice in a freezer-safe bowl or ziplock bag for two weeks.


Before serving first thaw rice in the fridge and then heat in the microwave to serve it.

Tips to make best Mexican rice:

• Always rinse the rice with water to remove starch from the rice and then soak it in water prior to cooking. This makes the rice fluffy and does not stick.

• For extra flavor add tomato or chicken bouillon.

• To make the rice fluffy, once everything looks cooked and no water is seen in the pot, then mix the rice once and cover with a lid and let it sit for another 10mins to get the rice fluffy. Use a fork to fluff the rice after some time.

• To reheat the rice use microwave or even you can cook it on a skillet till the rice is hot all the way through.

• Freezing rice works great and you can freeze it up to two weeks.I personally do not go for freezing rice for more than 2 weeks as for me the rice loses flavor if frozen for long time.But you can freeze for long time too, it's totally fine.