Cheap rice meals are time-saving, budget-friendly superstars that don’t rely on bells and whistles to wow. Take a deep dive into your pantry and, with a little creativity, you’ll emerge with most of the ingredients you need to feed the family, exceptionally well.
Cheesy Appetizer Spread
Last-minute guests can really light a fire under your cupboard-cleaning initiatives! Never let them see you sweat with this creamy, 15-minute take on everyone’s favorite restaurant dip. With a handful of ingredients — from plain cream cheese and frozen spinach to Success® Tri-Color Quinoa and Cheddar cheese — this appetizer comes together before everyone is even settled in. If pressed for time, simply soften the cream cheese in the microwave before you continue.
Spicy Seafood Salsa
If you’ve only ever used salsa for tacos, it’s time to let this pantry staple shine! A dazzling first course, this combination of Success® White Rice, salsa, crab, cilantro, and lime also makes a stellar weeknight meal. When days are long, there’s nothing quite like a simple recipe that comes together in minutes, uses what you have on hand, and is truly satisfying.
Santa Fe Chicken and Rice
Budget-friendly doesn’t have to be boring! Head to the vibrant south with a dish that combines Success® White Rice with a handful of pantry ingredients, including canned corn, black beans, and salsa. Keep this vegan or add chicken and cheese to take this satisfying supper to the next level.
Quick Vegetable Fried Rice
When rifling through the freezer ends with you clutching a bag of mixed veggies, turn to this 15-minute fried rice dish. With little more than Success® Brown Rice, canned water chestnuts, a couple of eggs, soy sauce, sesame oil, and bean sprouts, you can make a complete meal without buying anything new. Use leftover rice for an even better final dish.
Kale, Bean and Rice Soup
A go-to for giving odds and ends renewed purpose, soup is a satisfying, cheap rice meal that never gets old. Despite its mere five ingredients and 20-minute prep time, this filling, two-step recipe is exactly what we crave when temperatures dip. Make this once, and you’ll start stocking cannellini beans, pasta sauce, broth, and Success® Brown Rice in your pantry just so you can make this again!
Spring Minestrone with Rice and Peas
Another soup tailor-made for the edge of winter, this one gets loads of flavor and color from jarred basil pesto and bright spring veg. If your freezer is close to bursting, substitute frozen peas and spinach for fresh. Whichever you use, this soup is hearty, thanks to white beans and Success® White Rice, warming and is guaranteed to satisfy.
Eggs and Rice Supreme
Are you continually asked, “What’s for dinner?”. Keep a well-stocked cupboard and you’ll always be armed with a tempting answer! A recipe that works just as well at breakfast as it does at dinner, this customizable dish turns Success® White Rice into a complete meal. We recommend eggs, ham, pimientos, cheese, and seasoning for this dish, but other pantry treasures can work just as well.
Parmesan Rice Stuffed Peppers
This simple dish rises above its budget-friendly meal status thanks to its popularity — with cooks and everyone at the table. Simply grab Success® Brown Rice and tomato sauce from the cupboard, fresh peppers, pesto, and cheese from the fridge, and you’re halfway to dinner! A vegetarian main that you can serve on a weekday, to company, or simply make on Monday to enjoy throughout the week, these peppers prove there’s more to budget-friendly cooking than you ever thought possible.
Creamed Spinach and Rice Casserole
Casseroles are the ultimate cheap rice meal. Kitchen powerhouses that come together quickly and don’t make a mess, also combine several tasty ingredients in one place. A perfect way to transform that long-lost box of frozen spinach into dinner, this one also relies on Success® Brown Rice, condensed Cheddar soup, broth, ham, and flavorings for its winning taste.
Indian Spiced Tomato and Rice Casserole with Eggs
Wake up everyone’s tastebuds with this budget-friendly weeknight casserole flavored with ginger paste and garam masala. A recipe that gets body from tomato sauce, eggs, and Success® Basmati Rice, this one is easy to whip up, even when fresh groceries are running low.
Easy Texan Red Beans and Rice
In a world of pantry staples, beans are the delicious, protein-packed, adaptable constant that can take a pantry meal from so-so to spectacular. Dig a can out of the cupboard, sauté a little onion while you prep some Success® White Rice, and before you know it, dinner will be ready. Add leftover roast chicken, veggie ground round or canned ham for additional protein.
Cheesy Quinoa Bites
Make Success® Tri-Color Quinoa irresistible by combining it with frozen and fresh veggies, eggs and scads of melty, gooey Cheddar cheese. A recipe that works from morning to night, this one is also easy to adapt to whatever you have on hand. With 12 bites per batch, this recipe turns very little effort into a week’s worth of snacks.
Aloha Quinoa Power Balls
If you’re big on healthy snacks, it’s likely you have a cupboard full of tasty, if forgotten, odds and ends. Find the dates and dried pineapple, the cashews, the shredded coconut, honey, and Success® Tri-Color Quinoa, and transform them into something new. Tropical and packed with protein, these cute bites take eliminating food waste into tempting territory.
Polynesian Rice Dessert
If you can’t remember why (or when!) you bought that tin of pineapple tidbits, it’s time to put it to good use in this 5-ingredient dessert. Sweet, satisfying, and ready with just a little microwaving, stirring, tossing, and waiting, this tropical escape is one you’ll sign up for again and again!
Creamy Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pudding
If you see a can of coconut milk as a gateway to a luscious dessert, we like your style. With just a few eggs, Success® Tri-Color Quinoa, coconut milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla become a tasty treat the entire family will welcome.
The way you view pantry staples is all about perspective! If it’s a cheap rice meal you want, there’s nothing better than getting creative with leftovers, canned goods, jarred sauces and other cupboard and freezer find. With these recipes in your back pocket and Success® Rice, your pantry might soon become the first — not the last — spot you explore when dinnertime ticks closer.