One-Pot Spicy Vegetable Rice made in one-pot in under 30 minutes. It's easy, flavorful, and will be your new favorite mid-week dinner!
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I have been making this One-Pot Spicy Vegetable Rice for years and years and it is one of our favorite mid week, quick and easy dinners. Smoked paprika and turmeric are two of my favorite spices and they marry together beautifully in this very flavorful dish. The colors are lovely too with the rich mustardy yellow and the reds, greens, and yellows from the veggies.
The bell peppers become super sweet and the grape tomatoes give bursts of flavour in each bite. We love it served with some spicy Field Roast Sausage and habanero hot sauce!
How To Make Spicy Vegetable Rice
- Step 1 - Prep and chop the veggies then saute them in a pan.
- Step 2 - Add the rice, spices, seasonings and water. Stir well and simmer until the rice is tender.
That's all there is to it. It's such an easy meal!
Variations
Bell peppers, onions and garlic are essential to the flavour in this recipe but the other vegetables are pretty flexible. Replace them with whatever you have in your fridge or customize to suit your tastes. As long as you use roughly the same quantities all will be good. Even frozen veg works well.
If you have young children or someone who doesn't like spicy food you can easily omit the chili from this recipe to make it 'un-spicy' rice. If you do this though I recommend having a bottle of hot sauce on the table so that the people who like spice can add it to their own individual bowls.
Storing Leftovers
If you end up with any leftovers they keep well in the fridge for a couple of days. Add a few drops of water to stop it drying out then reheat in a microwave. Remember though that for food safety reasons rice can only be reheated once and it must be heated until absolutely piping hot.
Leftovers are awesome repurposed into burritos with some quick seasoned black beans and vegan cheese!
Recipe
One-Pot Spicy Vegetable Rice
Author:WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)
- 1 medium onion , diced
- 3 medium carrots , diced
- 4 cloves garlic , mince
- 2 large bell peppers , deseeded & cut into bite-sized chunks
- 1 cup (150 grams) frozen peas (or chopped green beans)
- 1 cup (150 grams) cherry tomatoes
- 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
- 1½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes , or a small fresh/dried chili diced
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (or chipotle powder)
- 1 ¼ cup (250 grams) uncooked long grain white rice , or basmati/jasmine
- 2½ cups (600 mls) water , plus more if needed
INSTRUCTIONS
- Heat the olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat until hot & shimmering.
- Saute the onions until translucent. If you don't want to use oil dry fry them or use a drop of water instead.
- Add the carrots, garlic and bell peppers and continue cooking for a few more minutes then add the rice, tomatoes, peas, spices, seasoning and water.
- Cook until the liquid starts to bubble, give it a real good stir, turn down low, cover with a lid and cook until the rice is tender and the liquid has been absorbed. If it gets to the stage where the water is absorbed and the rice isn't quite tender, you can boil a kettle and add another ¼ cup or so of water and put the lid back on to finish it off.
- Stir well then serve.
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Dan says
Hi, I'm new to cooking fresh (trying to get away from tv dinners). This sounds great but I'm a bit confused about the directions. The directions say use a large pan starting with the onions and adding everything else. But that would have to be a really BIG pan to fit all that. Should it be that you use the pan to cook the veges and at some point everything would go into a pot to cook? What then do you add the rice to? Would it be a pot? I learned to cook rice separately but are you saying that after cooking the onions, carrots and other veges you should add those and the (dry uncooked) rice to a pot with 2.5 cups water and cook the rice with everything else in there with it? Thanks very much!
A Virtual Vegan says
Yes that's what I'm saying. It all gets cooked in one pot together. It doesn't have to be an absolutely huge pot. I use a large sauté pan. You can kind of see it in the pictures.
Louise says
Really easy and tasty! Will definitely be cooking again
Evie says
Wow. This was really delicious. Thank you!
Benjamin Harris says
Just made this recipe, it was super easy and extremely tasty! Defiantly adding this to one of my list of meals.
A Virtual Vegan says
Thank you Benjamin. I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
Pammy Poo says
This was one of the best rice recipes I've ever made. Thank you!
A Virtual Vegan says
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for letting me know :)
Edith says
Daughter and I recently transitioned, thank you for so an easy meal. She really liked.
A Virtual Vegan says
That's awesome. So glad you both enjoyed it!
AV says
I made this dish to take for my lunches. It's a nice one-pot meal with plenty of vegetables.
Irina says
If I was to replace the carrots with sweet potatoes, would you recommend anything to change it? I dont have carrots but have sweet potatoes :) Also made this a few weeks ago and it was AWESOME
A Virtual Vegan says
I think sweet potatoes would be great in it instead of carrots. They take about the same time to cook so no need to change anything there. The beauty of this recipe is it's so flexible. You can swap any of the veggies that you don't have for those that you do. It's great for clearing out the fridge! So glad you enjoyed it last time you made it!
Hannah says
Great recipe, really tasty rice and nice and spicy just how I like it!
A Virtual Vegan says
So glad you enjoyed it Hannah!
Beth Donohoe says
I don't really care for peas, would edamame work okay?
A Virtual Vegan says
Yes definitely, or corn!
Shannon Rafuse says
I made this! So soo good. And so fast and easy. Only took me 20 minutes in all!
A Virtual Vegan says
So glad you enjoyed it Shannon!
Ammie Reynolds says
Hi Mel, I tried this dish last night, I was short of a couple of ingredients so had to improvise. It came out wonderful, I really enjoyed the spice and so did my mum! Even though she's not a fan of spicy food... So thanks for being such a great person and sharing your wonderful site... next is your red lentil dahl!!! Can't wait because it sounds delicious and I absolutely loved dahl when I tried it for the first time months ago so I was really surprised and happy to see it on your recipe list! I'll definitely be taking photos this time and tagging you on instagram! Happy veganing!! Ammie.
A Virtual Vegan says
I'm so glad you both enjoyed it Ammie. You will love the dahl. It's become one of our favourites. I've been making it every week. Look forward to seeing your pics!
Bri says
Hi this looks great ! Just wondering if I could use brown rice instead and how much water should I add? Thank you !
A Virtual Vegan says
Thank you Bri. I haven't actually made it myself with brown rice but I would imagine you could leave the amount of water the same and just cook it for a little longer until the rice is tender and most of the water has been absorbed.
Bri says
Ok great thank you I will give it a go!
Betsy Allen says
I tried this tonight, and it's definitely easy and very little clean-up (yay!). It was a little light on seasoning for us, so I added some seasonings at the end, and some sausage for my non-vegan hubby. It has a great base flavor, and I'm excited to experiment with it...the possibilities are endless, it seems almost any ingredient can be subbed with whatever you have in your pantry and fridge! Thanks for the recipe!
Dacey Daniels says
This is honestly my new favorite dish! It has just changed my life. Im pretty sure I'm going to eat this every week, if not twice a week. Omg it's so good.
Kathy says
My husband cannot eat bell peppers. What do you suggest as a substitute for them in this delicious sounding recipe?
A Virtual Vegan says
HI Kathy. This recipe is so flexible when it comes to the vegetables you use. Just about anything will work. I love green beans in it. Zucchini would be good, mushrooms, some extra tomatoes, even eggplant I think would be nice. I often throw in some celery if I have some that needs using up too. Just use whatever you have in the fridge, or his favourites. As long as the vegetable quantities are fairly similar it will work out just fine. Hope that helps :O)