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Cilantro Lime Rice is the perfect side dish for all your Mexican-inspired meals. It also goes great as a filling in a burrito or as a way to bulk up a salad.
Featured With This Recipe
Cafe Rio Cilantro Lime Rice Copycat
If you are looking for a new, delicious side dish, then this Cilantro Lime Rice recipe is your answer. You can have delicious Cafe Rio or Chipotle-style rice in no time! It is bursting with flavor and really brings your Mexican-inspired meal together. It comes together in just a few easy steps. First, you cook the rice in chicken broth, garlic, lime juice, and butter to make a rich, flavorful base. Then, when the rice is cooked you stir in a sweet and tangy cilantro mixture to top it off. That’s it!
Ingredients for Cilantro Lime Rice
- Rice – a white, long grain rice like Jasmine rice or basmati rice works best. You can substitute for brown rice but cooking times will be longer
- Butter
- Garlic
- Limes – fresh limes are best to get the best flavor. Use a juicer to get the fresh lime juice. You can also add a little lime zest if you like it extra lime-y.
- Chicken broth – you can also sub for vegetable broth
- Salt (to taste if needed)
- Sugar
- Fresh cilantro (leaves and tender stems)
Tips for Making Cilantro Lime Rice
- The rice recipe really does make a ton so if you aren’t a huge fan of rice, I would suggest halving the recipe.
- Use long-grain white rice when making this recipe. Once I tried it with Calrose rice because it was the only rice I had on hand and it DID NOT turn out well.
- Make sure you use fresh cilantro! Dried cilantro just won’t cut it. Using fresh gives the rice an incredible flavor.
- For a little extra flavor, sauté a little finely dice onion in some butter in the saucepan before adding the remaining ingredients.
- To make Instant Pot Cilantro Lime rice, combine rice, butter, garlic, 1 teaspoon lime, chicken broth, salt, and water to the Instant Pot and follow the instructions to make our easy Instant Pot rice. Continue with Step 2 in the recipe below.
What Pairs Well With Cilantro Lime Rice?
Cilantro lime rice pairs well with so many delicious dishes including black beans, tacos, burritos, enchiladas, carne asada, fajitas and more! Here are some more of our favorite recipes to serve with cilantro lime rice:
Read More: 33+ Easy Dinner Ideas
Storing and Reheating Leftovers
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week. You can also freeze the leftovers. Simply place leftover rice in a freezer-safe container in the freeze for up to 5 months. Reheat in the microwave by heating for a minute at a time, stirring each time. You cal also re-heat by placing the rice in a large non-stick skillet with a little oil or butter and heating on the stove top until heated through. If re-heating frozen leftovers, thaw the rice in the fridge overnight before re-heating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Chipotle uses long-grain white rice for their cilantro lime rice.
You can always do a mixture of rice and cauliflower rice to make a low-carb version. Sometimes we do a 50/50 ratio and can hardly tell a difference. Either way it is a great side dish!
Yes, Chipotle adds a little oil to the rice after cooking to keep it from sticking together.
Yes, just make sure that the chicken broth that you are using doesn’t contain gluten.
Refried Beans, Salsa, Guacamole, Nacho Cheese, and Sour Cream are all great Mexican sides.
Cafe Rio Copycat Recipes
This easy cilantro lime rice recipe originally came from our collection of Cafe Rio inspired dishes. It is the perfect copycat for Cafe Rio’s Cilantro Lime Rice. Cafe Rio is a beloved Tex-Mex chain that serves burritos, burrito bowls, tacos, salads, and more! We were obsessed but some of us didn’t have a location near our house. We started trying to recreate Cafe Rio recipes at home. Not to toot our own horn, but we totally nailed them! Those recipes helped us get on the map as recipe bloggers and they are some of our post popular posts to this day! Check out the collection here: Cafe Rio Copycat Recipes – All the Best in One Place. We have had such great feedback with ALL of our Cafe Rio recipes and we’d love to hear yours! Leave us a comment and let us know how your Copycat Cafe Rio dinner turned out! We love hearing from our readers!
How to Make Cilantro Lime Rice
Cilantro Lime Rice
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup rice uncooked, long-grain, white rice
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon lime juice freshly squeezed
- 15 ounces chicken broth
- salt (to taste)
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon lime juice freshly squeezed
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons cilantro fresh chopped
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan combine rice, butter, garlic, 1 teaspoon lime, chicken broth, salt, and water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook on low 15-20 minutes, until rice is tender. Remove from heat.
- In a small bowl combine lime juice, sugar and cilantro.
- Pour the mixture over hot, cooked rice as you fluff the rice with a fork. Mix until fully combined.
Notes
- Make sure you use fresh cilantro! Dried cilantro just won’t cut it. Using fresh gives the rice an incredible flavor.
- For a little extra flavor, sauté a little finely dice onion in some butter in the saucepan before adding the remaining ingredients.
- To make Instant Pot Cilantro Lime rice, combine rice, butter, garlic, 1 teaspoon lime, chicken broth, salt, and water to the Instant Pot and follow the instructions to make our easy Instant Pot rice. Continue with Step 2 in the recipe below.
in your instant pot suggestion it says to add broth and water…is that how much water to rice ratio for the instant pot…as in is it the same or do I decrease the water amount?
Use the same amount of water and broth in the instant pot as listed in the recipe.
There is way to much water in this recipe. It made the rice bland and mushy. I skipped the water and just used two cups of chicken broth. Came out perfect!
I agree Sami. It’s a great recipe when using the regular 2 cups of liquid to 1 cup rice ratio. I tripled it and used 4 cups chicken broth and 2 cups water and it was really good!
My favorite rice ever!! It’s light, fluffy, & I love the flavor! We eat it with everything!
I make this over any other rice! We love it & my kids love it, so it’s a win, win! It tastes great with many things!
Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe! Will surely have this again! It’s really easy to make and it tasted so delicious! Highly recommended!
This taste even better than the cafe rio rice and bean. So unbelievably easy to make too. I prefer this recipe over cafe rio anyday.
We’ve been using your cafe rio beans and rice recipe for a while now, and I finally came on here to write the recipe down… and where’d the beans go?! They’re so good! Please help me find your beans recipe. I can’t find it anywhere.
Thank you! Emily
Not to worry! We still have the black beans recipe, we just moved it to its own post! Here is the link: https://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/black-beans/
Thank you so much!!! Can’t wait to try some of your other delicious recipes! Keep up the good work!
I will definitely be making this again! Delicious!
These rice and beans were delicious! And my toddler just ate it up!
I love cilantro lime rice! Living in SoCal we eat it often! Thanks for the great recipe and reminder I need to make this again soon!
Love this side dish idea! We are a family that loves cilantro so I am always looking for recipes that have cilantro. Thanks for the great recipe!
This cafe-Rio cilantro lime rice and black beans sounds delicious and makes a wonderful dinner idea!
This is so delicious! The whole family loved it. Thanks again for yet another awesome recipe.