Forget Chipotle – make cilantro lime brown rice at home! Fluffy brown rice gets an upgrade with a healthy dose of lime and cilantro. Pair it with Mexican grilled corn and a strawberry basil margarita!

Recently my father asked me how I like to prepare brown rice, and it was a nice reminder of one of my favorite side dishes: Cilantro Lime Brown Rice!

It’s super easy, light in texture and goes with a seemingly endless number of meals!

Here are a few of my favorites meal pairings:

Served under a plate of grilled chicken and grilled pineapple
Inside an overstuffed burrito filled with steak, black beans, corn, guacamole and cheese (or in a homemade burrito bowl!)
Alongside kale sautéed with garlic
In a bowl topped with mexican grilled corn (and copious amounts of cotija cheese)
Or by itself with a wedge of lime!

Do you love or hate cilantro?

I just love the smell of fresh cilantro. It’s refreshing and evokes the thought of summer grilling (probably because the first thing I do when the weather warms up is grill corn and slather it with cheese and cilantro).

There are some people who really, really, really hate cilantro. It was a running joke at my last job that two of the women I worked had “the cilantro disease” – they both thought cilantro tasted like soap and refused to go near any food that had cilantro on it.

For the longest time I thought they were both just being dramatic, but then I saw an article about how it’s a real thing! Did you know about this?

Apparently people who can’t stand the taste of cilantro have sensitive olfactory-receptor genes that pick up the smell of aldehyde chemicals that exist in both cilantro and soap, and thus to them cilantro tastes like soap. That’s crazy!

I’m so happy that I do not have such a sensitivity because I freaking love cilantro.

Is brown rice healthier than white rice?

Generally speaking, yes. But largely it’s because white rice is sort of nutrient-neutral because of the processing it goes through.

Brown rice contains less sodium than white rice, and has the bonus of also containing natural nutrients like potassium, fiber, phosphorous, magnesium, copper, and manganese.

A few tips for making cilantro lime rice

I love making a big pot of this rice and them divvying it up into separate containers to use as a side with different meals throughout the week. Weekly meal prep FTW!
If you’re lucky enough to have a rice cooker, feel free to make it with that – but since I don’t have one my instructions are written for the old school saucepan method.
I also love to make mine with an abundance of lime: fresh lime juice in the water I’m prepping the rice in, lime juice and lime zest when I mix it all together. ALL THE LIME. If you’re not as into lime as much as I am, feel free to cut back wherever you see fit.

Behind the scenes

Total aside: Ever wondered what it looks like behind the scenes of these food photo shoots?

Why don’t I show you, because sometimes I’m in the middle of shooting and I have this moment of, “Really, Leslie? Really?” and this was one of those moments – but to prove it’s not completely ridiculous (okay, fine – it is, but humor me), it resulted in this photo next to it.

Worth it!

What to serve with cilantro lime brown rice

Steak Taco Bowls by 40 Aprons
Sheet Pan Steak Fajitas by The Busy Baker
Mexican Grilled Corn
Blackened Grilled Salmon by Whitney Bond
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork by Recipe Tin Eats