We all need to have a few budget-friendly recipes in our repertoire, and this Spiced Instant Pot Lentils and Rice is also quick and easy too!
Note: This post is sponsored by Harris Teeter. All the opinions and the recipe are mine and I hope you enjoy it.
When Harris Teeter asked me to make a meal for 4 under $20, I jumped at the chance. I already use their private label products and love that they’ve expanded their line to include many low priced HT organic choices as well.
Many people seem to think that eating vegan is either expensive or boring and this meal is neither. All you need to elevate inexpensive beans and rice are a few spices that are probably already in your spice cabinet.
I knew that I could do better than one meal for that. Just for this recipe I used 2 kinds of organic lentils, both French green and brown, a large container of organic jasmine rice, and threw in some organic vegetable broth. All of these came in at under $15 and you could make this recipe at least 4 times if not more.
Also you have enough left over to grab some HT Organics Marinara Pasta Sauce and HT Organics Whole Wheat Penne, plus almost $3 for fresh or frozen veggies to add in. I’ve given you 6 meals for 4 for under $20 and all the main ingredients are organic too.
You can save even more money by using water instead of vegetable broth, or just use 1/2 broth and 1/2 water. You can also tone it down a bit and just use all brown or all green lentils instead of buying both kinds at once.
If you don’t have these spices on hand to make my Middle-Eastern inspired version, try buying one blend like a chili powder, Italian seasoning blend, or even garam masala instead. What I’d suggest is to not add it until the mixture is cooked, then add the seasoning blend of your choice, to taste.
Budget Friendly Spiced Instant Pot Lentils and Rice
Ingredients
- 3 cups water or vegetable broth
- 1 cup long grain white rice like basmati or jasmine
- 1/2 cup brown lentils
- 1/2 cup green lentils or use all brown lentils
- 1.5 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1.5 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1.5 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic powder
- salt to taste
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
Instructions
- Add all the ingredients to your Instant Pot liner except for the salt. Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes. Carefully release the pressure manually.
- If you've used broth, you may not need to add any salt at all. If you used water, salt to taste and you can even add in 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast to give it an optional flavor boost.
Notes
Nutrition
Be sure to pin the recipe and share it with your Facebook friends and groups! Get more vegan Instant Pot recipes on the blog here or in my book, The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook for Your Instant Pot.
If you’d like to give these as a Christmas gift, here are 2 handy recipe cards to choose from for you to download. Just right-click and save image as.
marge201
I cannot wait to try to this. The spices are fabulous! Will balance it out with a ton of sauteed greens. Thank you. Your book is in my shopping cart! Loved your video with Chef AJ!
Bethery
Can this be done in a crock pot with the same measurements? I don’t have an Instant Pot.
Kathy Hester
I don’t think this would be a good fit for the slow cooker. I’m working on a revised edition of The Vegan Slow Cooker so I’ll see if I can come up with something else.
Cindy
I convert a ton of recipes to the crockpot.I think this would be fine. I’d add all the spices in to cook at the same time. If you’re home I’d cook it on high, otherwise low.
Denise Greene
I just made this and am having my first bowl. I’m a bit under the weather, and this was quick, easy, and makes for heavenly comfort food! Thanks for this!
Kathy Hester
I’m so glad the recipe helped! Get better soon <3
Lisa Klosinski
Awesome! Don’t know much about instant pot, 1st trial rice hard and awful! Without directions and recipe your go to recipe kicked butt! I didn’t have brown lentils or coriander used all green little less and set for 12 minutes and let sit 10 minutes on warm! Perfection! Thank you!
Jon
I do this nearly exact recipe in my microwave for 40 minutes on 70% power (sorry, I forget wattage). Pretty much every day for months at a stretch. Sometimes, I throw a raw (or even frozen) chicken breast in there and chunk it at the end of cooking. Generally, 1/4 cup lentils to 1/4 cup rice, then whatever else you want. Sometimes, I just do lentils, rice, and a little block of gouda or something from the bits-under-5-bucks bucket at Ralph’s. I’ll also occasionally throw in Ortega Mexican Seasoning along with the cheese, then add pepper to taste. It’s hard to overvalue the rice/lentil combo.
Jon
I can double the amounts to 1/2 cup each and just add 20 min to cook time.
JoAnn M Lakes
Who says eating vegan plant-based whole food is expensive?
Kathy Hester
I hear it from newbies and non-vegans all the time.
Debra
Looks yummy! I want to try it, but would like to use brown rice. Do you think I can do this and just cook about 5 minutes longer? Or would the lentils get to mushy?
Kathy Hester
They might get a little mushy, but it’s doable. I would cook 24 minutes though.
Evelina
For brown rice cooked as regular rice on the instant pot: Soak the brown rice for an hour, at a ratio of 1 cup brown rice to one cup water. Add a scant 1/4 cup of water for the pressure cooker. After soaking the brown rice you can cook it at the regular rice setting button, ( or white rice.) I usually use the delay cooking timer and set it to an hour. (I press the rice button, then press the delay timer and set it for an hour. I let the rice cool down on it’s own. I noticed, for my own taste, brown rice needs that steaming/cooldown time for a better texture.)
To adapt this recipe to using brown rice, (I have not tried this yet, but I do it for other similar recipes): I would wash the 1 cup of brown rice, and soak it in the instant pot in 1 cup of the cooking liquid used in the recipe for an hour. (Set a kitchen timer) Then I would add the rest of the ingredients and the remainder of the cooking liquid, and cook per this recipe’s instructions.
Notes; I have soaked basmati brown rice for 30 minutes then cooked it under the rice setting. It came out fine, but I prefer an hour unless I am in a rush. Other types of brown rice, even long grain, soak for an hour. The rice setting uses low pressure, btw., and either 10 or 12 minutes of cooking time. I learned the brown rice soaking tip from the tv show Simply Ming. The chef mixes 50/50 brown and white rice for his “house rice” in his restaurant. I just soak the brown rice alone, then mix in the white rice and it’s water in the instant pot and cook using the rice setting. I made this once for a holiday dinner when some family – to be unnamed – didn’t care for plain brown rice. Let me tell you, they ate this “house rice” right up!
JoAnn M Lakes
I’m planning to use brown rice also but quick release after 12 mins and then add the lentils and cook for 13 minutes with a 10-minute natural release. The spices sound just yummy!
Carol
I just made this and followed what it said and when it was done I had to add a cop of water just to be able to mix it up because it was so dry I couldn’t even mix it…..Next time I will put 4 cups of water instead of three!! I WILL make this again so easy and quick. The flavor was very mild and Im thinking because of the extra water after it was cooked!! Did anyone have this problem?
Amy
Carol, I just made this and didn’t have this problem, but I’m wondering if maybe you used the dry measuring cup you used to measure the rice and lentils to measure the water? I used to make this mistake with recipes and just realized it does make a difference to use the typical glass measuring cup specifically for liquids for the liquid ingredients in the recipe.
Laura
Me. Just now. It’s good, but it definitely needs to be cooked with more water.
Carrie Ryan
Hello Kathy: Thank you for posting this. How can I use brown rice in this recipe?
Amy
This was incredibly quick, easy, and delicious, thank you! I didn’t have onion powder so just used a bit more garlic powder. I topped it with some plain whole milk yogurt and some tomatoes and cucumbers that I had marinated in vinaigrette, and also carmalized onions. But it would be fine on it’s own too! My 2 year old loved it too.
Heather
Hi, I made this recipe last night for dinner. I must say the flavors were delicious, but it was just a big pile of mush, not fluffy at all and the lentils completely disappeared. If I didn’t know they were in there, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. I followed the recipe exactly. What do you think went wrong?
Kathy Hester
I’m not sure since more people have found them too dry.
Sue
When I tried this the lentils were cooked perfectly but the rice was complete mush. I used real basmati rice from India. Any ideas?
Kathy Hester
I have found if it sits on warm for very long it does go to mush. Maybe try manual pressure release?
Teresa
Followed directions exactly. Natural release for 10 minutes and then quick release but I still had mush. Very disappointing!
Lisa Klosinski
Thank h the used white rice too! I’m not sure about perfection, not mush!
Maureen
I just made a version of this yesterday! I use 2-3tbls cumin, 1tsp gr.coriander, 1tsp gr.cardimom and about 10 pieces of mistika (mistic gum). It was shown to me from my Egyptian neighbor about 40yrs ago. It’s called mujadara. I love this!
Shelby
I made this with brown rice and loved it! I followed the same instructions. (15 mins on high pressure and natural release) The only other thing I substituted was the brown lentils since I didn’t have any. I used green and black lentils.
This mix was fantastic stuffed in peppers topped with a bit tomato sauce and melted vegan cheese.
Saahil
Hi, this recipe didn’t work for me. The rice was sticky, the lentils were hard, and the addition of cinnamon made it sweet (although I may have added a bit too much). Any ideas what went wrong? Should this work on any Instapot?
Igor Sandler
Lenthil came out hard with this recipe.
Annie
Recipe came out great. Family loved the dish. Will definitely make again. This was so simple to do. I like the idea of being able to change up the spices to change the flavor profile.
Jenny
The rice was a bit sticky and the lentils slightly hard but not terrible. This was my first instant pot recipe and still edible! I was worried I’d have to throw it out after reading the reviews. Oven baking some fall squash now to go with it.
Mary Ann
Lunch today was fabulous! I made mine in the instant pot manual-high pressure for 15 minutes cook time and quick release. The rice was well done and the lentils still had some chew. Thanks for the recipe.
Lois Reborne
I made this tonight using a bag of rice and lentil organic mix from Aldi’s. I added two grated carrots after the steam was released, then put the lid back on the pot and let it stay warm. I ate it with sauteed chanterelles from my front yard, some chopped chicken breast, and some chopped fresh peppermint leaves.. The seasoning was perfect! The texture wasdifinitely chewy, but I liked it. Since I’m single, I put a couple servings in the freezer Thanks for a versatile dish and the great mix of seasonings.