Garlic is tangy, spicy, and flavorful. When you cook it with rice, it adds a sweet, soft, buttery taste. Garlic also offers numerous health benefits.
Add garlic to your rice cooker to boost the taste of your next dish. Use minced, chopped, crushed, or powdered garlic–whatever you have. You can also cook garlic bulbs right in your rice cooker. Black garlic offers even more health benefits and brings a sweet, tangy, earthy flavor.
Should You Add Garlic To Your Rice Cooker?
Garlic makes a flavorful addition to your rice cooker. You can add garlic in any form you have on hand to spice up your rice. You can also ferment garlic cloves into black garlic using your rice cooker (more on this in a moment).
Can You Add Garlic Cloves To Your Rice Cooker?
The next time you cook rice, throw in a few garlic cloves. Let them cook with the rice, and they’ll infuse your rice with spicy garlic flavor.
Can You Add Garlic Powder To Your Rice Cooker?
Yes, add garlic powder the next time you cook rice. You might also add spices like onion powder, marjoram, oregano, or curry powder. Create cooked rice that packs flavor and compliments your meal. Garlic powder is more budget-friendly than fresh garlic and keeps on the shelf longer.
Why Add Garlic?
In addition to garlic’s benefit as a flavor enhancer, garlic contains sulfur compounds that provide your body with numerous health benefits. When you crush, chop, or slice garlic cloves, you change the sulfur into allicin. Allicin is what makes garlic great for your health.
4 Health Benefits of Garlic
Boosts your immune system
Garlic can help your body fight off or kill viruses by boosting your immune system.
Contains antibiotic properties
Allicin can help fight infections. Garlic can help stop the growth of
- Bacteria like Salmonela
- Fungal infections
- Viral infections
Helps lower high blood pressure.
Eat garlic with your next meal to help lower your blood pressure. Use powdered, chopped, minced, or crushed garlic to get results.
Helps lower cholesterol
Add half to one clove of garlic to your diet each day, and it can help lower your cholesterol by 10%.
Easy Garlic Butter Rice In Your Rice Cooker
This recipe is one of my favorites because it’s great for busy evenings. I dump all the ingredients in my rice cooker, add protein on the side, and have an easy meal in under an hour. Sometimes, I even cook veggies at the same time as the rice!
Here’s what you’ll need
- 3/4 cup Jasmine rice (or use the cup that came with your rice cooker)
- 1 ¼ cup chicken broth (or water)
- 2 teaspoons of chopped garlic (2-3 cloves) OR ½ teaspoon of garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons butter, chopped into small pieces
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Rinse the rice and add it to your rice cooker.
- Pour in the broth.
- Add the garlic, butter, and salt. Stir to combine.
- Close the lid and choose the “white rice” setting on the rice cooker.
- When the rice cooker finishes, fluff the rice with a fork and serve warm!
Tips
- Jasmine rice brings a subtle nutty flavor to this dish and is my favorite type of rice. If you use short-grain rice instead, reduce the broth to 1 cup.
- Rinse your rice well and shake off as much water as possible before you add it to your cooker.
- Use ¾ cup rice OR fill the cup that came with your rice cooker.
- Substitute black garlic for the garlic in this dish for a more intense garlic flavor. Find the recipe below!
Why You Should Make Black Garlic In Your Rice Cooker
If you’re adventurous, try making your own aged garlic! Black garlic, or aged garlic, is packed with nutrients that are easy for your body to digest. Aged garlic has extra antioxidants and B vitamins that help protect your body. It’s easy to make but takes about two weeks to develop fully. Here’s how to do it:
- Wipe the dirt off 4-6 garlic bulbs. You’ll want as many as can fit in a single layer in your rice cooker. Keep the skin on.
- Set your rice cooker on the “keep warm” setting.
- Lay the garlic bulbs in the inner pot of your cooker and close the lid.
- Set a reminder to check on them after 5-7 days. You can sniff them or take a tiny piece off to taste.
- Leave them in the cooker for up to two weeks.
The exact amount of time depends on your taste. You’re looking for a sweet, tangy taste with a slightly chewy texture. Once you think the bulbs are done, remove them from your cooker and let them cool.
Store your fermented garlic in an airtight container in the fridge. Use black garlic in pasta, salad dressings, sandwich spreads, or marinades.
Fermented garlic can thin your blood. If you are on blood thinners, check with your doctor before you consume black garlic.
Final Thoughts
Garlic can help boost your immune system, lower your cholesterol, and may even help fight infections. Add chopped, minced, crushed, or powdered garlic to your rice cooker for a tasty rice bowl.
