Jamaican Coconut Rice (Instant Pot)

Learn how to make some island style coconut rice that is light, fluffy, delicious and flavoursome. An instant pot version of this rice dish made with nutritious brown rice and coconut milk.

Course Appetizer

Cuisine Jamaican

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 20

Total Time 35

Servings people

Calories 434kcal

Author Charla

Ingredients

2 cups basmati brown rice (380g)
1½ teaspoon garlic granules (4.5g)
1½ teaspoon onion granules (3g)
8 sprigs of thyme tied together
½ teaspoon pink salt (3g)
1½ cups water (355ml)
1 can full fat coconut milk (400ml/14oz)
2 tablespoon creamed coconut (56g)(coconut cream/manna)
8 pimento berries optional

Instructions

Thoroughly rinse the rice until the water runs clear, use your hands to toss the rice to ensure it has been completlely rinsed through (I did this using a large sieve).
Place the rice in the inner pot.
Add the bundle of thyme, the onion, garlic granules and pink salt.
Pour in the water.
Combine the creamed cocont in the jug with the coconut milk and pour that into the pot too.If you are adding any additional ingredients like scallion, pimento etc.. add that now.
Place the lid on the instant pot and set the switch to "sealling".
Select "pressure cook" on "high" mode for 20 minutes (The unit will take several minutes to build up pressure before it begins).
Once done, allow the unit to perform a natural release (should take around 10 minutes).
Set the switch to "venting" to release any excess pressure.
Remove the lid and use a fork to fluff up the rice and to shake off any additional leaves off the thyme stem.
Discard the thyme stem.
Do a taste test and add any pink salt if required.

Video

Notes

Feel free to add in some pimento berries or whole scallion if you wish to do so.
Refrigerate any leftover rice for no more than 24 hours.
You can use low fat coconut milk instead of full fat if you want to reduce the calories but the taste of coconut will be weak.
Freeze brown rice for up to 3 months.
You can purchase creamed coconut/coconut cream with any grocery store which is frequented by African Caribbean. It was also cheaper than buying it from a health store.
Be sure to follow the EXACT measurements to ensure your rice isn't sticky.
If you run into any issues when making the rice, please refer to my How to Fix Rice post.
Soak the rice in lime water, if you need to the night before to ease any bloating and gastrointestinal problems.
Make sure to use a balance of water and coconut milk, don't skip using the water as the recipe won't turn out very good without using both.
Feel free to use brown jasmine instead of basmati brown rice for this recipe.
It is very important to wash the rice until the water runs clear. I spent quite some time (just a personal habit) washing my rice to ensure every bit of debris and excess starch had gone.
To optimise the taste in coconut, I definitely recommend adding creamed coconut. It's not pictured but I did combine it with the coconut milk.
Feel free to add any additional seasoning, if you want to.

Nutrition