So lately we got wind of this amazingly easy dish to cook in a rice cooker that everyone’s been raving about — the whole tomato rice!
As a lover of simple recipes (the simpler, the better), I couldn’t wait to give this recipe a go. But I thought, well, white rice and a tomato isn’t going to give you a lot of nutritional benefits, so why not amp up the recipe with a HealthWorks twist?
Here’s our take on the wildly popular rice cooker whole tomato rice:
Ingredients
1 cup brown rice
1 large ripe tomato
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (or to taste)
1 tsp olive oil
Optional add-ons prior to cooking: frozen green peas, chunks of marinated chicken breast, tofu, etc
Optional add-ons after cooking: cheese, a sunny side up
Method
1. Wash rice, add water.
2. Add in the salt, pepper, olive oil and give it a stir to even out the flavours.
3. Cut out the stem part of the tomato and place tomato in the middle of rice cooker
4. Sprinkle in peas, ham, or any additional ingredients of your choice (just make sure it cooks in the time it takes to cook the rice).
5. Click cook on rice cooker. While waiting, fry up a sunny side up (optional, but adds great depth of flavour).
6. When rice is done cooking, break open the tomato and incorporate it into the rice.
7. You can top it with some shredded cheese and a sunny side up. Or just eat it on its own.
How Does it Taste?
Surprisingly good for such a simple dish! The tomato lends a delicious tangy flavour to the brown rice, while the blend of spices (salt, pepper, olive oil) is just right. It’s not too salty or tasteless. Our addition of a runny egg yolk gives the rice a silky finish, and it is so so delicious!
Of course, the brown rice helps to add more fibre to the entire dish, while the egg adds some much needed protein. You can always add in some veggies of your choice to make this a more complete meal, but the rice dish itself will go well as an accompaniment to several dishes.
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What do you think of this recipe? Try it out and tell us how we can improve it! We would love to see your versions of this dish too!
Ham and sausage for much needed protein from a site that aims to educate the public about healthy eating and lifestyle? Seriously? You used to post better quality articles. This tomato rice recipe hype is toy overrated. There has long been similar cooking methods like this around, but cut the tomatoes so the flavor would soak the rice more evenly. Really, its just 2-3 more cuts into chunks, add some herbs and spices, vegetables, tofu cubes, or real minced meat…
Hey Siu Xian,
Thanks for the comment, and I understand where you’re coming from. Too much ham isn’t the best for your health, and fresh meat is definitely a better source of protein. However, the recipe is supposed to be a fast and easy fix for a meal, so I figured ham was the best way to go. (Didn’t think fresh meat would cook that well in a rice cooker).
But now that you’ve pointed it out, yea, we can definitely use real minced meat in this. So thanks a lot for the suggestion! And the addition of tofu cubes sounds really good too! Do you mind if we modify the recipe with your suggestions? 🙂