Vegan Mexican rice offers a hearty, wholesome meal with big flavor. What’s more, we cook this non-traditional arroz “non” pollo right in our slow cooker! What’s the trick? Soy curls! If you’re lucky enough to have an Instant Pot, this becomes a one pot meal with easy clean up.
How To Make This Recipe
For this dish, we pull together a handful of ingredients. First, we grab our aromatics, including olive oil, onion, garlic, and bell pepper. Our seasoning blend includes oregano, cumin, and turmeric. In addition, we bring green beans, peas, and diced tomatoes to the party.
Soy curls stand in nicely for traditional chicken, but seitan or a mild soy chorizo will also do the trick. Finally, we have valencia rice, vegetable broth, and picante sauce.
Prepare The Base
When we’re using our Instant Pot, we complete both of these steps using sauté and slow cook functions. Assuming we’re using a traditional slow cooker for our vegan Mexican rice, we begin by sautéing our onions in olive oil over medium heat.
We cook these vegetables until the onions become translucent. Then, we stir in our garlic, oregano, cumin and turmeric. We briefly cook this blend until fragrant.
Next, we pour this onion mixture into our slow cooker. To this mix, we add our broth, diced tomatoes, soy curls, green beans and bell peppers. We season with salt and black pepper to taste. Finally, we set our slow cooker to low and cook for 6-8 hours.
Add Rice
Roughly an hour before the dish is finished cooking, we add our valencia rice. We stir to combine and continue cooking on low until the rice is tender. Then, we mix in our picante sauce along with the peas. We continue cooking for another 10 minutes or until the entire spanish rice dish is warmed through.
Once warm, we’re ready to serve! Scoop a hearty portion of your vegan Mexican rice into bowls and garnish with a little soy parmesan. Enjoy!
More savory stews:
Recipe Card for Vegan Mexican Rice
Here’s the recipe card for Vegan Mexican Rice. Print, share or save!
Vegan Mexican Rice
Equipment
- Large skillet or instant pot
- Slow cooker or instant pot
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil extra virgin
- 1 small yellow onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 teaspoon oregano Mexican
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/8 teaspoon turmeric or saffron threads
- 3 cups vegetable broth chicken-style
- 1 can diced tomatoes with juice
- 1 cup soy curls rehydrated
- 1 each bell pepper small, chopped
- 8 ounces green beans stemmed and chopped
- 1 cup Valencia rice (or Uncle Ben’s)
- 3/4 cup picante sauce
- 1/2 cup frozen peas
- 1/4 cup soy parmesan optional garnish
Instructions
- Using a large skillet, sauté the onions in the olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes (or until onions are translucent). Stir in garlic, oregano, cumin and saffron or turmeric. Cook for another minute or two until fragrant. Pour the mixture into your slow cooker.
- Add broth, diced tomatoes, soy curls, green beans and bell peppers into your slow cooker or Instant Pot. Season with salt and black pepper to taste. Finally, set your slow cooker to cook for 6-8 hours on low.
- Roughly an hour before the dish is finished cooking, add rice and stir. Continue cooking on low.
- Once the rice is tender, mix in both the picante sauce and the peas. Continue cooking for another 10 minutes.
- Scoop a hearty portion of your vegan Mexican rice into bowls and garnish with soy parmesan. Enjoy!
