How To Make Rice More Flavorful For FREE!

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

I make rice often. It’s inexpensive and lends itself to many different flavors of your meal. But I’ve found a way to make my rice even more flavorful and nutritious versus cooking it in plain water. And it’s FREE!

Use Whatcha Got is what I always say! Check out this Homestead Hack. 

've discovered an easy way to really intensify the flavor of rice when I prepare it. Check out this Homestead Hack! #TexasHomesteader

Favorite Rice Dishes

Rice is pretty cheap. And it’s easy to flavor it specifically to accompany whatever entrée I’m making. So it’s common for me to choose rice as a side dish. RancherMan enjoys the various rice dishes I serve.

Cilantro-Lime Rice – a favorite when garden cilantro is growing well.

Texas styled Spanish Rice – when we’re having Tex-Mex for supper.

Buttered Sage Rice – when I’m serving pork chops or roast.

Buttered sage and garlic rice is a favored side dish at our home. #TexasHomesteader

But although he likes the flavor and texture of white rice just fine, he really loves the more intense nutty flavor and firmer texture of brown rice best.

Add to that fact that it’s also healthier and that means I’m often cooking up brown rice instead to accompany our supper. 

Running Out Of Homemade Broth For Cooking

One day as I’m making my meal plan I included brown rice in the plan. Then I discovered I was out of Homemade Broth.

As I assembled my ingredients, I pondered ways to make sure my plain brown rice was flavorful enough for my man’s meat-n-potatoes palate without homemade broth.

Homemade Broths Used In My Homestead Kitchen

You see, I typically have homemade broth in my pantry because I’m constantly using homemade broth in my homestead kitchen. I’m often making & using:

Slow Cooker Chicken Broth
(Pressure-Canning Instructions For Bone Broth)
Instant Pot Bone Broth
Turkey Broth With Thanksgiving Turkey Bones

Homemade broth is simple to make. #TexasHomesteader

But with no broth in the pantry for this meal what will I do? Maybe just cook my rice with plain water? Hummm…

Don’t worry, to add more flavor to my brown rice I won’t have to resort to using plain ole water. I’ll use the flavorful vegetable juice previously drained from cans of veggies that I’ve saved in the fridge for just such occasion.

How I Save Free Vegetable Broth Over Several Days

In the past I’d always hated that the excess flavorful juice from a can of veggies was often just poured down the sink.

So now when I’m serving canned vegetables with our supper I’ll drain the juice from each of the cans of veggies into a jar to save it for later.

Free Vegetable Broth by draining juice from canned vegetables. I've discovered an easy way to really intensify the flavor of rice when I prepare it. Check out this Homestead Hack! #TexasHomesteader

Then I store the jar of saved vegetable broth in the refrigerator until I can use it in my cooking. 

That juice is flavored like the veggies contained in the can. And it typically already has sufficient salt too.

So there’s really no need to add additional seasonings at all unless you just want specific herbs, etc.

Using Vegetable Broth To Cook Brown Rice

When I’m cooking rice I’ll add 1 part rice to 2 parts liquid. So today I measured out the reserved vegetable broth and my rice.

Then I chopped some onion and sautéed it with the rinsed brown rice in just a tiny amount of bacon grease until the onion was translucent and the rice was lightly browned.

Now that my rice & onions are ready I just pour in my reserved veggie juice and cook my brown rice to delicious perfection. 

It’s much more flavorful than rice cooked in plain water and receives RancherMan’s seal of approval.

Reducing Food Waste While Saving Money

I love that this small incredibly simple act reduces food waste since the juice in the can of vegetables is not just poured down the sink and wasted.

There are many advantages to using vegetable broth drained from cans of vegetables:

Adds nutrition to my rice over cooking it in plain water.

Tastes like the canned vegetable it was drained from so it adds flavor.

Reduces my food budget, I don’t have to buy vegetable broth.

It reduces food waste & it’s FREE!

Keeping your dollars instead of wasting money. #TexasHomesteader

My own vegetable broth. It’s easy, free and delicious.

Use Whatcha Got!

~TxH~

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4 thoughts on “How To Make Rice More Flavorful For FREE!

  1. ilene

    I use my saved vegetable broths to use as the base for vegetable soup. Hadn’t thought of using it to cook rice in, that’s sure a good idea! Try a little Turmeric, a Bay leaf and just a tiny bit of powdered Cloves, also chopped celery and carrot, in addition to that chopped onion. I think you might like that.

    Reply
  2. ColleenB.

    I never could see throwing out that wonderful canned veggie liquid. (what a waste dumping it down the drain when it can be used for other things and saved for another time. I save, put in glass jars and put in freezer or you could freeze in ice cube trays; once frozen remove cubes from trays and put in ziplock freezer bags.
    I had made rice yesterday for our meal. Had only white long grain so added about 1 t. of my own taco seasoning mix to 1/2 cup uncooked rice and using left over chicken broth I cooked my rice.

    Reply
    1. Texas Homesteader Post author

      I made ‘Endless Soup’ the other day for a week’s worth of lunches for RancherMan & me. ( https://texashomesteader.com/endless-soup-for-warm-nutrition/ ) I used the veggie broth I’d saved in the freezer from cans of vegetables to rehydrate the dehydrated cabbage I had in the pantry and added the tomato sauce I was making with a bundle of fresh tomatoes along with other veggies to make a hearty cabbage stew. The result was a delicious, nutritious soup to feed us all week with very little cost. Gotta love it! Your taco-seasoned rice has me in the mood to whip up a little rice for our supper soon – YUM. ~TxH~

      Reply
  3. Patty

    Wow, this is one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that’ ideas – I love using broth for rice, but veggie juice sounds delicious too. Thanks for sharing such a simple, yet ingenious, tip!

    Reply

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