My Go-To Low Calorie Rice Blend

Sometimes called half calorie rice, my low calorie rice blend is a high volume blend of cooked jasmine or long grain rice with riced cauliflower. This nearly doubles the yield of the total rice while barely adding calories and mostly hiding the cauliflower. And for an extra boost of protein and flavor, I like to cook the jasmine rice in bone broth.

This rice blend is a meal prep staple in our house. I use it for simple protein rice bowls, lower calorie fried rice, and all kinds of Kinda Healthy dishes.

Have you seen claims about cooking rice with coconut oil or other ingredients to alter the calorie makeup of rice or make low carb rice? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those are myths. Your best bet to enjoy “real” rice without as many calories is to add more volume to stretch the calories as far as possible.

How to Make Low Calorie Rice

I’ll walk you through the process and cover substitution and modification tips as we go along. You only need four ingredients to make this low calorie rice blend, and that’s the following:

• jasmine rice or your choice of long grain white rice
• bone broth
• frozen cauliflower rice
• seasoning blends like furikake, sesame garlic crunch, etc.

Let’s start with the rice and bone broth.

Step 1: Cooking Rice with Bone Broth

The recipe calls for cooking the rice in an Instant Pot using a 1:1 ratio of rice to broth. You can cook the rice using other methods like a rice cooker or on the stovetop, but you may need to adjust the amount of liquid.

Any long grain rice works for this recipe but double check the instructions on whatever rice you use to make sure the rice to liquid ratio is the same. And if you don’t have bone broth on hand, any broth or just water both work fine as cooking liquids.

To cook jasmine rice in an Instant Pot, use a 1:1 ratio of rice to liquid and cook with high pressure for five minutes. Let the pressure release naturally for ten minutes before venting. The rice should be perfectly cooked without any remaining broth or cooking liquid in the Instant Pot.

Step 2: Adding the Riced Cauliflower

The recipe calls for frozen riced cauliflower, but fresh works perfectly fine. If you’re using fresh, let it hang out with the cooked rice for five to ten minutes. The residual heat in the Instant Pot will take care of the rest.

What about cauliflower substitutes?

There are other options like riced palm hearts and other vegetables. You can also find veggie-based rice options like the chickpea Right Rice I used in my Greek chicken skillet. If you’re using something like the latter, you’ll likely need to play around with liquid ratios and cook the chickpea rice alongside the jasmine rice. (Or cook it separately and add just like the microwaved frozen cauliflower rice.)

Step 3: Seasoning the Rice Blend

While there’s nothing wrong with a couple pinches of salt, I like to add a slightly bigger punch with a seasoning blend. Furikake rice seasoning or something like the spicy sesame garlic crunch from Whole Foods both work wonders.

You can also add other flavor enhancers like butter or olive oil, fresh herbs, vinegar or citrus, or sauces.

This recipe makes a HUGE batch of rice, so you may want to split the cooked rice blend into separate containers to season differently.

I like making cilantro lime rice to serve with dishes like my ground turkey al pastor or firecracker ground bison, for example. But I rarely use that much cilantro lime rice. So I’ll stick to a simple seasoning for the other half to make a wider variety of protein and rice bowls.

How to Store, Reheat, and Serve Half Calorie Rice

My recipe makes a BIG batch of rice. If you’re only serving one to two people throughout the week and don’t need large servings, cut the recipe in half.

Store the cooked rice blend in airtight containers and refrigerate for up to 4-5 days. Any longer than that and you’ll want to freeze leftovers.

While you can use the rice as-is to make rice bowls with proteins (ideas below), I love making fried rice with half calorie rice. Check out my ground beef fried rice for an example.

Recipes That Call for My Low Calorie Rice Blend

• ground beef bulgogi protein bowls
• teriyaki ground turkey stir fry
• sweet chili rotisserie chicken bowls
• Korean BBQ rotisserie chicken bowls
• teriyaki beef stir fry

I hope I’ve answered any questions you might have about making low calorie rice without any tricks or gimmicks. If you have a question I missed, leave it in the comments below. And if you try this rice blend and enjoy it, I always appreciate recipe reviews!