If you enjoy eating rice at Mexican restaurants, this can be a nice side dish to eat with your Mexican dinner at home.  I actually made it the main course by adding cooked chicken into it toward the end.

(Tip: It works out great to make this recipe after cooking a whole chicken and reserving the broth for this recipe.)

My recipe came out quite spicy because I used my own homemade salsa which is spicy…but I’ve also had much spicier!   I really think the outcome will depend on how hot your salsa is.  So if you want mild, use mild salsa, but if you’re wanting spicy, then use some hot salsa!

(Sorry, no pictures yet.  I’ll update this with pictures the next time I make this recipe.)

Ingredients:

2 cups of uncooked brown rice (or white)

1 TB brown gravy mix

1 TB cumin

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 TB seasoning salt (Lawry’s works great!)

Tip: Place all these dry ingredients together in a bowl ready to toss in.

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1 lg. onion (finely diced)

1/4 cup of  olive oil

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4 cups of chicken broth (can use water, but much tastier with broth)

1 – 8 oz. can of tomato sauce (for cooking brown rice, I add one 8 oz. can of water as well)

8 oz. of your favorite salsa (or a can of Rotel)

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1/3 cup chopped cilantro to add at the end. (optional)

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Instructions:

Saute diced onion in oil until tender.  Next, toss in rice & spices (1st 5 ingredients) and saute for about 1 min.

Next, add tomato sauce & salsa.  Stir.

Then, add your 4 cups of broth.  Bring to a boil.

Finally, lower heat to simmer, cover, cook until rice is done and sauce is very thick.   (About 20  minutes for white rice, and  40 min. for brown rice.)

Add cilantro when finished if desired.