Mexican Restaurant Style Cilantro Lime rice is one of my favorite rice dishes and now you can make it at home with my easy to make recipe!

I have a thing for rice; it has to be cooked a certain way and there are really two ways I like it – sticky as in Jasmine at Thai or sushi restaurants, or Mexican restaurant style like red rice or cilantro lime rice. 

I love green rice. Well it’s supposed to be green, it didn’t come out as green as I thought it would have for these photos, but we will go with it. I made it came out very green. Made it again, pretty sure I only used half the cilantro I was planning on. I need to pay better attention! I will have to make it again greener and add in new pics to show the variations in color. All still amazing in flavor. 

One of our few favorite places to eat on the strip is at this AMAZING Mexican place, Taqueria Canonita at the Venetian casino, I almost always order the pork belly tacos ( AMAZING by the way) and it comes with cilantro lime rice. I took one bite and YUM. I was hooked. I love cilantro and it has a nice tang from the limes. I knew needed to make this at home asap.

I had my items out as I was waiting for the light to change to get pics in the light I wanted, so I was messing around taking shots for practice and I actually liked how these came out with the more drastic shadows. The light stayed like this for a little bit so I played around with taking pics of my limes as well.

So yeah, now I have a new rice recipe I like. I had actually made this to go with a grilled pork tenderloin I made for dinner the other night and wasn’t planning on blogging about the rice, I was just planning on posting the pork recipe ( which was killer by the way) but the rice came out so good, I felt it needed its own post.

My rice comes out different colors depending on how much cilantro I use. Sometimes I don’t pay as much attention as I should and add in twice as much cilantro for a very GREEN rice. My kids think its funny when it comes out super green. Here you can see more of the flecks of cilantro in the rice. If you want a more green color double up on the cilantro.

I really loved it and I will be making this cilantro lime rice a lot more from now on. My kids even loved eating the green rice! Now that’s a winner in my book if my kids love it.

Yield: 8-10 servings

Mexican Style Cilantro Lime Rice

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Cilantro lime rice - tangy, green rice that goes great with tacos, grilled meats, chicken or fish.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups white rice such as jasmine, basmati, long grain
• 1 large bunch cilantro ( about a cup and a half)
• Zest and juice of 2 limes ( about 2 tsp zest, 2 Tbsp juice)
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp kosher or sea salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black Pepper

Instructions

Rinse the rice until the water runs clear. Drain well and place in a saucepan and add 3 cups water. Bring to a rapid boil over high heat. Lower the heat all the way, cover and cook 12 min. Turn off the heat after 12 min and let steam for 10. While the rice is cooking prepare the rest of the ingredients. In a food processor or blender add the cilantro, lime zest and juice, garlic, oil, salt and pepper. Blend or process until smooth. You can add in another lime's worth or zest and juice as well as another cup of cilantro for a stronger flavor and color.

Fluff the rice with a fork or rice paddle and add the cilantro mixture. Fold the rice until well combined and all the rice is mixed with the cilantro sauce green. Season with more salt and pepper to taste, if desired. Serve hot

Notes

Like I mentioned prior you can add more cilantro and lime zest and juice to make the rice more green. Everytime I make this dish it comes out a different shade of green.

Stay tuned because next up will be the grilled pork tenderloin I mentioned that I made this rice to go with.