Good ingredients to pair with rice
Start by choosing the role rice needs to play: plain and fluffy beside a saucy dish, seasoned as the centre of a bowl, or fried with already-cooked ingredients. Chicken, eggs, beans, peas, tuna and vegetables all give it a different direction.
Easy rice meal ideas
- fried rice — use it as a starting format and adapt the vegetables, seasonings and portions to what you have.
- rice bowls — use it as a starting format and adapt the vegetables, seasonings and portions to what you have.
- tomato bean rice — use it as a starting format and adapt the vegetables, seasonings and portions to what you have.
- quick chicken rice — use it as a starting format and adapt the vegetables, seasonings and portions to what you have.
How to get the best from rice
For stovetop rice, use a pan with a well-fitting lid and let it rest briefly after cooking before fluffing. For fried rice, cold cooked rice is easier to separate; spread it out to cool rather than adding steaming rice straight to a crowded pan.
Turn a few ingredients into a coherent dinner
Choose a base, a flavour direction and one or two supporting ingredients. For example, rice or potatoes can make the meal filling, while lemon and garlic, tomato and herbs, soy and chilli, or curry spices can give the ingredients a clear direction.
Make the idea fit your evening
The same ingredient can produce a very different answer depending on whether you need dinner in 20 minutes, want one pan, are feeding four people or need to use another ingredient before it goes to waste. Add those constraints before choosing the final recipe.
Use SIZZIO to make it specific
Tell SIZZIO what you have, how many people you are feeding and what kind of meal you want. You can then save the recipe and move into the cooking flow instead of starting another search when it is time to cook.