Perfect White Rice in the Instant Pot or Ninja Foodi

Making fluffy white rice in the Instant Pot or Ninja Foodi is almost suspiciously easy. Add the ingredients, let the pressure cooker work its magic and come back to tender, buttery rice without hovering over a saucepan or scraping something unfortunate from the bottom.

I originally developed this recipe in my Ninja Foodi, but it uses only the pressure cooking function, so it can also be made in an Instant Pot or another electric pressure cooker.

Once you have the basic method down, you can start playing with different flavours. My buttery mushroom rice adds sautéed mushrooms and onions, and it’s ridiculously good beside chicken, beef or anything covered in gravy.

Why Make White Rice in a Pressure Cooker?

Honestly, rice is not particularly complicated. And yet, stovetop rice has an uncanny ability to boil over, run out of water or weld itself to the bottom of the pot the moment you look away.

Pressure cooker rice is much less needy.

You don’t have to watch it, stir it or keep lifting the lid to see whether it has betrayed you yet. Once the cooker comes to pressure, the rice cooks quickly and finishes during a timed natural release.

This method gives you:

• One less saucepan demanding your attention
• Tender, fluffy long grain white rice
• Consistent results without stovetop babysitting
• An easy side dish for almost any meal
• Rice that can be portioned and frozen for later

🛒 Ingredient Highlights

✅ Long grain white rice: Regular long grain white rice gives the most reliable results with this pressure time. Avoid instant, converted, brown or wild rice because they all have their own ideas about timing and liquid.

✅ Chicken broth: Broth gives the rice an easy savoury boost without making it taste overly seasoned. Use low sodium broth so you can control the salt.

✅ Salt: A small amount wakes up the flavour. If your broth is already salty, reduce the added salt or leave it out.

✅ Butter: Stirred in after cooking, butter adds richness and helps separate the grains. It also makes plain rice feel considerably less plain and honestly, this is a step I think is necessary! A bit of butter added to the rice brings it to another level of deliciousness!

What Kind of Rice Should I Use?

This particular recipe is intended for regular long grain white rice.

Jasmine and basmati rice may work with a similar pressure cooker method, but their texture and ideal cooking times can vary. If this is your first time making pressure cooker rice, start with ordinary long grain white rice and save the experimentation for another day.

Do not use these directions for:

• Instant or minute rice
• Brown rice
• Wild rice
• Converted or parboiled rice
• Arborio rice
• Sushi rice

Those varieties need different amounts of liquid, different pressure times or both. Rice may look innocent, but apparently every variety requires its own personal treatment plan.

A Note About Rinsing The Rice

Rinsing removes some of the loose starch sitting on the outside of the grains. Too much surface starch can make the finished rice sticky or gummy.

Place the rice in a fine mesh strainer and rinse it under cool running water until the water becomes mostly clear. Let it drain thoroughly before adding it to the pressure cooker.

That last part matters. Water clinging to poorly drained rice counts as extra liquid, even if you didn’t invite it to the recipe.

Can I Make This Rice in an Instant Pot?

You absolutely can!

The Ninja Foodi and Instant Pot use slightly different buttons and controls, but the basic pressure cooking method is the same. Add the rinsed rice, broth and salt to the inner pot, cook it on High Pressure and allow it to finish with a timed natural release.

I’ve included the specific Instant Pot controls and complete step by step directions in the recipe card below.

I recommend using the Pressure Cook or Manual setting rather than the automatic Rice program. Automatic programs can vary between models, while manually selecting the pressure and cooking time gives you more consistent control.