I’m married to a Mexican-American man and his Auntie makes the best rice you’ve ever had. We live miles and hours away from her, however, so I asked her to teach me how to make it. Over 10 years ago, she gave me the bones of what she does and this is the recipe I came up with! My husband tells me it’s even better than hers, but that’s a secret.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup avocado oil
• 1 and 1/2 cups of jasmine rice
• 3 and 1/2 cups of chicken broth ( I use better than bouillon organic base)
• 4 T tomato paste (about half a small can)
• 1 tsp each of dry oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin
• 1/2 tsp each of salt and pepper

Instructions

Heat a saucepan with a good fitting lid over medium heat. Don’t have the lid on it yet. Heat the avocado oil in the pan and add the rice. Toast the rice for five minutes or so, stirring frequently. Add the chicken broth. It will make a scary sizzling sound, but that’s ok! Add in the other ingredients and stir well. I know it seems like a lot of spices, but they’re essential. Let the rice come up to a boil. You can stir all during this time. Once it’s at a boil, turn it down to the lowest setting that will maintain a very low simmer (for me it’s just right about the lowest tick on my stovetop dial), give it one more good stir, and put the lid on. Let it simmer for 25 minutes and DO NOT OPEN THE LID during that time. It helps if you have a clear lid so you can spy on it. Once the time is done, take the pot off the heat and set it to the side, keeping the lid on for 10 more minutes. Then and only then can you open the lid. The rice will look strange because it needs to be fluffed/stirred. Then, it’s perfection. I’m working on making this in the instant pot, but I haven’t perfected that quite yet.