Chicken Vegetable Rice – Uncle Ben’s Copycat Recipe
Chicken Vegetable Rice is one of my favorites from Uncle Ben’s. I wasn’t much of a rice eater growing up, but my mom only cooked white rice. It was Mahatma brand and tended to be on the sticky side. I would poke at it if there was some gravy to smother it with or drown it in margarine before forcing it down. Now and again we’d have Rice-A-Roni and I could take it or leave it.
I was always more of a potato girl, give me potatoes in any way, shape, or form and I was a HAPPY camper! I have no issues with instant mashed potatoes either. I used to make them for an after school snack when I was in elementary school. I was making loaded/stuffed potatoes way back in the 1970s before they were a “thing.”
In my 30s I began having my food issues which led to the allergy testing and I found out I was allergic to nearly everything I was eating. Wheat was a major allergy problem, even my beloved potato showed as a minor allergy trigger. The one food that showed to be totally benign was rice.
Then began a whole new relationship with rice. I actually learned to cook rice, something I had never been very successful at doing before. I learned to cook with rice flour. Rice mixes from the grocery store became really interesting and appealing to me. I found some mixes that I really fell in love with, then came the era of microwave rice in a plastic bag. The nicest thing I can say about that stuff is that the rice tastes like the plastic bag! Sadly, many of my favorite mixes are no longer available and it coincided with that bag of microwave stuff that tastes like the bag.
So, I began creating my own mixes like the Chicken Vegetable Rice – Uncle Ben’s Copycat Recipe. Yes, it’s still available, but I would rather create recipes from scratch so that I know for sure exactly what the ingredients are. I must admit that I surprised myself once I compared the ingredients of my recipe to those found in the actual Uncle Ben’s mix. The major difference is that my mix has absolutely NO gluten versus the trace amount found in the Uncle Ben’s Chicken & Vegetable Rice.
The cost is also about 1/2 the price is when I prepare my rice from scratch versus when I make it from a box mix. I buy all of these ingredients on a regular basis, especially when they’re on sale. The taste is also much different, but in a good way. The freshness is obvious from the first to the last bites.
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Serves: 2.5 cups
Serving size: ½ cup
- 1 c parboiled long grain rice (I prefer Uncle Ben's)
- 2 c. water
- ½ to 1 c. frozen peas and carrots
- 1 Tbs chicken boullion (Better Than Bouillon is most like Uncle Ben's packet)
- 2 tsp dried Parsley flakes
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- Combine all ingredients in a 3 quart microwave safe dish.
- Cook on high for 15 - 25 minutes based on your microwave's power and settings.
- Can be cooked stove top, but it's not cooked that way at this house. Good luck if that's your choice!
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