🌾 Instant Pot Wild Rice: The Cozy, Hands-Off Side Dish You’ll Make All Season
There are certain foods that just feel like the beginning of cozy season.
A pot of soup simmering. Something roasting in the oven. A loaf of bread cooling on the counter.
Wild rice has that deep, earthy flavor and pleasantly chewy texture that makes even a simple dinner feel a little more intentional. The problem? On the stovetop, it can take the better part of an hour—and it has a habit of making you wonder every ten minutes whether it’s actually doing anything in there.
So I started making it in the Instant Pot.
And, friends, this is the way. 🌲
Once everything goes into the pot, there’s no babysitting, no stirring, and no repeatedly lifting the lid to investigate. Twenty-five minutes at pressure, a short natural release, and you have a batch of tender wild rice ready for soups, grain bowls, roasted vegetables, stuffing—or just a little butter and a fork.
🌿 Why You’ll Love This Recipe
This is one of those quiet little kitchen recipes that earns its keep.
Hands-off once the lid goes on
Easy to make with chicken or vegetable broth
Perfect for soups, bowls, stuffing, and fall dinners
Much more interesting than another scoop of plain white rice
And the ingredient list is refreshingly short.
Makes: About 3 cups cooked
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Pressure Cook: 25 minutes
Natural Release: 10 minutes
Total Time: About 45–50 minutes
1 cup organic wild rice, rinsed and drained
1 1/4 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
🍲 How to Make Wild Rice in the Instant Pot
Place the wild rice in a fine-mesh strainer and rinse it thoroughly under cool running water. Let it drain well.
2. Add everything to the pot.
Add the rinsed wild rice, broth, butter or olive oil, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, and a few grinds of black pepper to the Instant Pot.
Give everything a quick stir.
Secure the lid and set the valve to Sealing.
Cook on High Pressure for 25 minutes.
4. Give it a natural release.
Once the cooking time ends, resist the urge to immediately open the valve.
Let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then carefully release any remaining pressure.
Open the lid and gently fluff the wild rice with a fork.
The grains should be tender but pleasantly chewy, and many of them will have split open to reveal their lighter interiors.
If a little cooking liquid remains at the bottom, you can drain it off or simply leave the pot uncovered for a few minutes.
Taste for salt and pepper.
And if this is going directly onto the dinner table?
Add another little pat of butter.
🌲 A Cedar Hollow Kitchen Note: Wild Rice Isn’t Actually Rice
Here's a fun bit of kitchen trivia for your next dinner conversation:
Wild rice isn't technically rice.
It's the seed of an aquatic grass native to North America, which helps explain why its flavor and texture are so different from ordinary white or brown rice.
It's earthy. Nutty. A little woodsy. And it keeps a satisfying chew even after cooking.
But that brings us to the most important detail in this entire recipe:
Use 100% wild rice—not a wild rice blend.
Check the package before you start.
Many products labeled "wild rice blend" contain wild rice mixed with brown rice, white rice, red rice, or other grains.
Those grains don't all cook at the same rate.
This recipe was developed specifically for 100% wild rice, so a blend may turn out too soft, too firm, or somewhere in the mysterious pressure-cooker wilderness between the two.
🍁 What to Serve With Wild Rice
Once you have a container of cooked wild rice in the refrigerator, you'll find excuses to use it.
stirred into creamy chicken and wild rice soup
beneath roasted squash or root vegetables
tossed with dried cranberries, toasted pecans, and herbs
mixed into autumn stuffing
served alongside roast chicken
paired with pork tenderloin
added to grain bowls with greens and vinaigrette
mixed with sautéed mushrooms and onions
One of my favorite quick versions is simply warm wild rice with butter, cracked pepper, fresh thyme, and roasted vegetables.
Just good food doing its job.
🥣 Can You Meal Prep Wild Rice?
Absolutely—and that's one of the best reasons to make it this way.
Let the cooked rice cool before transferring it to an airtight container.
Refrigerator: Store for up to 4–5 days.
Freezer: Freeze for up to 3 months.
For freezing, I like portioning it into smaller containers so I can pull out exactly what I need for soup or dinner.
When reheating, add a small splash of water or broth before warming. That little bit of moisture helps bring the grains back to life.
🍂 One Pot Now, Several Dinners Later
This probably isn't going to be the flashiest recipe in your collection.
That's exactly why I like it.
It's the kind of recipe you learn once and quietly keep using—the batch of wild rice waiting in the refrigerator that turns roasted vegetables into dinner or lets you decide at 5:30 that, yes, apparently we're making soup tonight.
Those are the recipes worth keeping around.
And around Cedar Hollow, we're rather fond of those. 🌲
Save this recipe for the first cool evening that has you reaching for a sweater and wondering whether it's too early to declare soup season.
Simple food, useful techniques, and recipes worth keeping.
jimmyeatworldofficial
areudirty
