Bryant Terry’s Amazing Green Rice
A very special green rice. A blender of green juice made from kale, spinach, and a creamy stock is cooked with onions, garlic, green pepper, and long-grain rice. It all cooks together into an intensely green and fragrant pot of fluffy grains.
Hi all, I hope everyone is hanging in there during all of this uncertainty. I’ve been trying to stay off my phone and focus instead on doing things that are positive and productive close to home. There’s a lot of cooking and baking going on and I wanted to share this gem of a recipe. It’s an amazing green rice from Bryant Terry’s new book, Vegetable Kingdom. If you’ve got some greens on hand, and some rice, you must, must, must make it. It really is *so* good. A blender of green juice made from kale, spinach, and a creamy stock is cooked with onions, garlic, green pepper, and long-grain rice. It all cooks together into an intensely green and fragrant pot of fluffy grains.
Green Rice: Give it a Try, Really!
Let me just also say, I know some of you are shy about cooking rice. Even if you think you’re no good at cooking it, push those thoughts aside and give this recipe a try. It’s worth a go. Because even if you don’t nail your rice perfectly, close enough is good enough here, and you can make adjustment based on your experience the next time around! Also, consider doubling the recipe while you’re at it, its a great way to up your greens consumption. I’m going to list the ways I’ve been using this green rice for leftovers below.
Green Rice Leftover Ideas
There are so many(!) things you can do with leftover green rice. Here are a few to consider.
- Fried rice: Cook day-old rice in a skillet with extra garlic, a bit of chopped up omelette, a bit of tofu, maybe add a handful of broccoli?
- Onigiri: Shape the green rice into chubby triangles and pan-fry until crusted and golden. You can even tuck a bit of tofu or a few edamame into the center for added surprise.
- Green Burrito with Guacamole: Do a version of this quinoa burrito, but use this green rice in place of the quinoa.
- Green Rice Soup: Make a green version of this rice soup (I actually made this for dinner last night) - basically thin the rice out to desired consistency with stock or water, season, and go from there with toppings, etc.
- Green Rice Cakes: Whisk an egg or two into the rice (1 for each cup of rice), shape into patties and pan-fry into rice cakes.
- Whole Grain Green Rice: Do a version using brown basmati or brown jasmine rice. Up the liquid, and cooking time a bit based on the rice you're using, and package instructions.
Topping Ideas
It’s all about the crunch here. Toasted nuts, crispy shallots, toasted nori, citrus zest, sesame seeds, crumbled kale chips.
More ways to find Bryant! On Instagram, his site, on Twitter.
More Rice Bowl Recipes
- A Simple Brown Rice Sushi Bowl
- Sesame Coconut Rice
- Instant Pot Brown Rice Bowl
- Super Orange Citrus Rice
- Rainbow Cauliflower Rice Bowl
- Kale Rice Bowl
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Bryant Terry’s Amazing Green Rice
If you have the time, Bryant has you soak the rice grains over night covered with water plus 1 tablespoon vinegar. If you skip this step, it’s o.k. just increase your cooking time by a few minutes. Also, I bump up the amount of garlic in this rice because I love it. And substituted coconut milk because I had an open can, and coconut rice is luxe and delicious.
- 1 cup tightly packed spinach leaves, stems removed
- 1 cup tightly packed kale leaves, stems removed
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock or water
- 2 tablespoons full-fat coconut milk or cashew cream*
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup long-grain white rice
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup finely diced yellow onions
- 1/2 cup diced green peppers
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
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In a blender, combine the spinach, kale, stock or water, coconut milk, and salt, and puree until smooth. Set aside.
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Drain the rice. Rinse it thoroughly and set aside.
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In a medium saucepan over medium heat, warm the oil until shimmering. Add the onion and bell pepper and saute until soft, about five minutes. Add the garlic, and cook, stirring often, until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the rice and cook for a minute or two, toasting a bit. Raise the heat to high, pour in the contents of the blender, and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender and most of the liquid has evaporated, 15 to 20 minutes - perhaps a bit longer if you skipped the overnight soak.
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Remove from the heat and set aside to steam for 10 minutes. Immediately before seeing, fluff the rice with a fork. I like to serve topped with some crunchy nuts or any of the other toppings suggested in the post.
Serves 4-6
*Puree 1 cup water with 1 cup of cashews that have been soaked for a couple of hours.
Adapted from Bryant Terry’s Vegetable Kingdom, Ten Speed Press 2020
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Comments
I cooked this in the Instant Pot and it came out great! I used coconut milk, only fresh spinach and some fresh dill bc that's what we had. Followed recipe exact using the "Sautee" and the "Rice" cooking functions. I did stir in a bit of olive oil and coconut milk before serving. Delicious!
This truly is amazing! I made a double recipe and we not only enjoyed it for a couple of dinners, but then my husband made Green Rice Cakes, adding an egg, a flax egg, sauteed onions, garlic powder and some bread crumbs. So delicious! Thank you so much, Heidi, for your incredible recipes.
Yes to green rice cakes!
This was so good and loved by all. I make kidney stones, so can't eat spinach. I just cut that out and didn't increase greens, because I thought it would be too strong for my kidos. I added one very small piece of ginger to the green mix and if I was making it for myself only I would add more. I used one can of coconut milk and adjusted water amount. I left out the pepper because cooked pepper isn't my fav. SO SO GOOD! thanks for the inspiration.
I've had this recipe saved since you posted. We finally got our hands on some rice, but it's brown. Do you think it will still work with increased cooking time? We are dying to try it!
Hi Kristin, Yes - and just make sure the amount of liquid is in the ball park of the ratio recommended for whatever rice you're using. My guess is that you'll have to add a bit more...Enjoy!
I whipped up my leftovers with a whisked egg, some chopped arugula, pinenuts & parmesan and used it to make stuffed portobellos from the oven. Absolutely delicious!
This was amazing. My husband said it’s a keeper. Which is saying a lot! I’ll be making this again but I need more rice. The shelves are empty here in AZ. Thank you for all your amazing recipes.
I have a big pot of cooked rice. How would you adapt this to use the already made rice? Do you think that would work?
Hi Amy,I think the magic comes from cooking the rice in the super green liquid. Try it next time!
Great recipe - we loved it - the only changes we made were to add some grated parmesan on the top with roasted almonds and pumpkin seeds and changed up the colour of the pepper. Now we even have more for tonight!
Loved this recipe and am planning on making big batches as I’m able to find more rice. However, my final product was not nearly as verdant as what is pictured here. Much more like the dull green of a cooked pea. Any idea why? I used the exact ingredients called for (and opted for coconut milk). Any idea why?
Hi Erin - any chance you added lemon juice or something acidic? Or perhaps maybe the cooking time, or time on heat was longer if everything else was the same.
I only have frozen spinach available to me at the moment - could you suggest how much of that to use ? Because frozen spinach is so dense it seems to me 2 cups would not be equivalent to the fresh greens amount you listed ... thoughts ? Many thanks!
Hi Dara - you're right about the density, but don't worry too much, you have some latitude here! Use a bit less of the frozen or basically 2 big frozen handfuls...
This is wonderful! I used a poblano and about a cup of leftover coconut milk, 50g each of spinach and kale. Next time I’ll add some green curry paste, or maybe a touch of lemon zest / juice. Definite winner with lots of possibilities! I met Terry Bryant once and appreciate his work. Thanks, Heidi. Be well ...
Made this as a side dish - subbed the kale for rainbow chard and the green for yellow pepper. Turned out delicious! What a great idea to get some extra greens-
I made this last night and the two of us ate it all--yum! Because of 10" of snow here in Tahoe and coronavirus I subbed collards for spinach instead of going to the store. Also used basmati rice soaked for only a half hour.
Could this be made with brown basmati rice? Currently no white rice to be had here in my neck of the woods.
Hi Lisa, yes. You can try brown jasmine or brown basmati. Up the liquids & cooking time a bit (per the rice package instructions)...
Only 2 tablespoons of coconut milk?
I made a double batch, and with that amount it was a tad creamy and wonderfully fragrant. You could absolutely up the ratio of coconut milk, scaling back the water or broth!
Added ginger paste to broth. With spinach and basil. It was tasty! The green peppers were neutral but I added a few long hot peppers and think a habanero would be even better and a bit more garlic. Would definitely work with this recipe again!
Oh yeah! Love the ginger idea. I imagine a serrano would be really great in place of the green pepper for anyone who prefers.
Can this recipe be adapted to use a rice cooker?
Hi Michelle, I don't see why not. I suppose you'd do the saute of onions on the side and then add that with the liquids and rice to the cooker - maybe adjust the liquid/rice ratio to what typically works best in your cooker?
Hi Heidi, Do you think you could make this with quinoa instead of rice?
Hi Maura, I think you could! Although as I was making it, I thought just spiking the rice with a small handful of rinsed quinoa might be a nice place to start. Like 10-15% quinoa?
Do you use your instant pot for rice? I’ve been using mine and might try to adapt this. Thanks for the recipe!
I love the IP for broths and congee and the like, but not so much everyday rice. I still prefer stovetop or make it in my favorite rice cooker donabe.That said, you should absolutely give it a try! Espcially if you love your IP for everyday cooking.
You almost lost me at “green peppers.” Green bell peppers are definitely NOT amazing. The recipe, otherwise, looks good. Let farm animals have the green bell peppers & the margarine & we discerning humans will nourish ourselves with the good stuff.
You can totally leave them out!