This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Food Lion. All opinions are 100% mine.
We eat a lot of Mexican food in this house—nachos, tacos, homemade bean dip, chicken quesadillas—all of which pair beautifully with Mexican rice. I thought I’d share my super easy Instant Pot Mexican Rice recipe with you today!

Note: This recipe is made in the Instant Pot because it’s a sanity saver (and time saver) for us busy moms!
Ingredients:
- 1 Cup White Rice (preferably organic)
- 1 Tablespoon (ish) of Butter
- Garlic Powder
- Salt
- 1 Small 8 Ounce Jar of Tomato Sauce
- Small Splash of Salsa
Serve with:
- Refried Beans
- Tortilla Chips
- Sour Cream
For this batch of Mexican rice, we purchased our ingredients at Food Lion. It’s the closest grocery story to our house—win—and I’ve recently been trying out their Shop & Earn program—saves you an average of $20+ each month in simple offers.
I’ve been using the Food Lion app to quickly activate with the offers and personalized savings before/while I shop. The app makes the program and savings easy to access from anywhere! When I shopped, my Shop & Earn program had an “earn $10 when you spend $30” that applied to the entire store—this limited time offer made it the perfect time to stock up on these Mexican Rice ingredients so you always have them on hand for future last minute meals.
There are also coupons that you can load onto you MVP card from the app for everything else you’re buying that day!
Mexican Rice Directions:
- Turn your Instant Pot on with the medium “Sauté” setting.
- Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in the bottom of the pan.
- Add 1 cup of rice to the melted butter.
- Sprinkle some garlic powder and salt on the rice and sauté until the rice turns a light golden brown.
- Dump 8 ounces of tomato sauce into your measuring cup and then add water to the same measuring cup until you have a TOTAL of 1.5 cups of liquid (Roughly 3/4 cup tomato sauce and 3/4 cup water).
- When your rice is golden brown, turn your Instant Pot off, add the liquid and mix.
- Mix in a splash of salsa for flavor and texture.
- Turn your Instant Pot back on this time using the Rice setting (12 minutes, low pressure). Make sure your Instant Pot valve is turned to “sealed.” When the cook time is finished, do a quick pressure release by carefully turning your valve from sealed to open.
- It’ll need a good mix and then it’s ready to serve.
That’s it! You can serve this next to a super fancy Mexican dish or keep it simple and enjoy just rice and beans for lunch! I love mine with sour cream on top (or greek yogurt in place of sour cream), refried beans on the side and some tortilla chips! You can always search Pinterest for a homemade salsa recipe if you’re feeling super inspired.
Don’t forget to use the Food Lion’s Shop & Earn program when shopping for these ingredients (and your groceries in general). There’s no reason to spend more than you need to on groceries, especially when they’ve made it so simple to save!
P.S. I also love Food Lion’s customer satisfaction guarantee! In a world where great customer service isn’t always the norm anymore, it’s something I notice and makes me want to come back again and again!
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