Instant Pot Tomato Rice – Instant Pot Indian Recipes

Instant Pot Tomato Rice – How to make Tomato rice in an Instant pot – Instant Pot Indian Recipes – Indian recipes using Instant Pot.

What is an Instant Pot ? – Its a programmable counter-top electric pressure cooker…. You must have heard or read about this magic machine in the past few months… people rave about. I was so skeptical in using one as i am pretty old school and totally love my traditional pressure cooker. 🙂 There are many models and capacity to choose from, i got 3 quart Instant Pot Duo Mini as a gift this christmas and will be trying my hand on taming it to make Indian recipes.  Its basically an electric pressure cooker where you don’t have to babysit, count whistle or time everything is done with a touch of a button.

Try our                                   TOMATO RICE                QUINOA TOMATO BATH

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4.84 from 6 votes

Instant Pot Tomato Rice

Instant Pot Tomato Rice - South Indian Style Simple Tomato Flavored rice made with Instant Pot.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Total Time30 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Indian, southindian, Tamilnadu

Keyword: instantpot, rice, tomato

Servings: 2 people

Author: Mullai Madavan

Ingredients

Rice Water Ratio

• 1 cup Basmati Rice
• 1 cup Water

Ingredients to temper

• 1 tablespoon Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Mustard seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon Split black gram
• 1/2 teaspoon Fennel seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon Cumin seeds
• 5 each Curry leaves

Ingredients for Saute

• 1/2 cup Tomato chopped
• 1/4 cup Onion chopped
• 4 cloves Garlic crushed
• 3 each Green Chilli slit open
• 1/4 teaspoon Turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon Red Chilli powder
• 3/4 teaspoon Salt

Instructions

• Soak Basmati rice for 15 minutes.
• Switch on Saute mode, heat oil and splutter mustard, split black gram, cumin fennel and curry leaves.
• Saute chopped onions, tomatoes and crushed garlic till they turn mushy.
• Add in turmeric powder, red chili powder and salt and saute well.
• Add soaked rice along with 1 cup water. 
• Put the lid on, bring the vent to sealing position. Press the rice mode (button). 
• Once the cooking cycle complete, the pot will beep then use quick pressure release to vent out the steam. 
• Once all the pressure releases, carefully open the lid and remove the pan from the machine. Fluff up rice and transfer. 
• Tomato rice is all ready to be served.

This is my first recipe using Instant pot, i would be happy if you share your thoughts once you try it out! This is totally new to me… there are certain features yet to figure out, would love to hear your tips and tricks to tackle this one!

These are the ingredients needed to make tomato rice. Try using shallots (chinna vengayam) and soft ripe tomatoes if possible. Let me walk you through the step wise instruction….

Once you plug in the machine will turn on and will show OFF on the screen.

Now press the Saute mode…. the timer will show 30 minutes.

Now it will beep and the screen will show ON at Normal level. If you press the saute mode again it will move to MORE level.

The pot will heat up… add oil

Temper with mustard seeds, split black gram, fennel seeds & cumin seeds.Let them sizzle a bit.

Throw in some curry leaves too.

Now add green chili, garlic, onion and tomatoes… Iam adding all at once as I am using shallots which cooks faster… if adding regular (periya vengayam) then saute the onion, garlic and chili first & then add tomatoes.

Saute till the tomatoes turn mushy…

Next in the row… add turmeric powder, red chili powder and salt.Saute for few minutes.

Rinse the soaked rice a couple of times and drain all the water. Add rice to the pot.

According to instant pot rice setting manual… you use 1:1 ratio for basmati rice.  Here are the options… choose the texture which you wish to have.

I am using 1 cup water for 1 cup rice (soaked for 15 minutes) plus that tomato gravy will roughly comes to 1/2 cup.

Time to put the lid on and put the vent to sealing position.

Now the mode will show AUTO Pressure level low, normal heat level. This model toggles between low and high pressure when cooking rice depending on the level of liquid added & quantity prepared. It builds up pressure for few minutes and then cooks for about 10 minutes.

Once it cooks, it will beep and few times calling for help…..  😀  You can choose to quick vent or natural vent depending on the texture you wish to have. I kind of liked the quick release… as i don’t want my rice to over cook and get mushy…. gently twist the vent from sealing position to venting.

The steam will gush out for few minutes till the vent settles. Wait wait wait… do not open.

Once the vent completely de pressurize… open the lid. There you go… perfectly cooked rice.

Immediately get the pan out of the machine… as the base is still hot.

Lightly fluff up…. look at the texture 😛

If you rest them outside… no rice sticking to the bottom. If left in the pot, there will be rice sticking to it.

All done…. enjoy!

Notes

• Different models cook rice differently… quantity, liquid measure all matters. You got to play with it to figure out  🙂
• I will update as I learn with you all!