I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight! Remember that song from when we were kids? And then we’d dance and flap our arms? Good times. Today, I’m going to show you how to make a gluten free chicken and rice recipe two ways.
The goal is to help you cook once and eat twice. If you make your batches large enough, you can actually cook once, and eat three or even four times (talk about an easy weeknight dinner waiting to happen).
Don’t have Celiac Disease or dietary restrictions? That’s OK. You’re still going to love this fantastic chicken and rice recipe. Now, let’s have you scroll down and start with the video. It isn’t too long and I’ll walk you through the full process.
Tired of thinking up a new gluten free dinner idea every night of the week? Let me do the heavy lifting for you. 100 Days of Free-From Dinners is a weekly dinner plan delivered straight to your inbox. No more thinking, just check out the list. I also link you to applicable recipes to make your free-from life even easier.
Allergy Status
Usually, I have a big long status for you to review, but today we have two recipes. The BBQ version contains some less common allergens. The other pan is a lot more universal. Your basic chicken is also totally customizable, so read the provided notes.
For GERD, Low FODMAP, and both Migraine Diets, use the savory chicken (right pan video) recipe.
Gluten Free Chicken and Rice Recipe Cooking Video
Whilst there aren’t step-by-step photos today, I do have this handy video for you to enjoy. It’s not super long, and I’m going to show you the full process so you can see how easy it is to make this happen.
Gluten Free Chicken and Rice Recipe Ingredients & Instructions
For the Pressure Cooker Chicken
- 1.45KG Organic Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs (3.25 lbs/52 ounces)
- 800mL Water (3.5 cups/28 ounces)
- 5 tsp Sea Salt
Optional Ingredients
When you plan to cook once and eat several times, you have to make an important choice: do you want to add more seasonings up front? If you do, that can limit what you’ll be able to do with the chicken later.
For the most basic of chicken, all you need is salt. All of the other spices can come once we hit the stovetop. On the flipside, you can add spices that will be universal. Those include:
- Black Pepper
- Garlic Powder or Garlic Granules
- Marjoram
- Mushroom Powder
- Onion Powder or Onion Granules
- Sweet Paprika
These are all pretty basic spices, and generally won’t clash with any other type of cuisine.
Chicken Directions
Add everything to your pressure cooker, mix well, then pressure cook on high for 23 minutes. That’s it. You’ll add chicken, salt, and any universal safe-for-you spices you want to have in the chicken base.
For the Rice
To make this easy recipe, you need cooked white rice or cooked brown rice. When I make this type of recipe, I cook the entire 900g/2 pound bag of organic rice (this is the brand that I use). Your rice options include:
- Basmati Rice
- Black Pearl Rice
- Brown Rice (when I go brown, I make short grain rice)
- Cal-Rose Rice
- Jasmine Rice
- Long Grain Brown Rice
- Long Grain White Rice
- Red Jasmine Rice
- Sushi Rice (a family favorite around here)
- White Rice
Ultimately, the type of rice you use doesn’t matter too much, so long as YOU like the taste and texture of said rice. The only type of rice you can’t use for this recipe is arborio rice, which is specifically used for making risotto. I mean, you could make a creamy chicken and rice risotto, but that’s not what we’re doing in the video today.
Rice Directions
Get your rice cooking according to the package directions, or using a rice cooker. It’s so important if you’re using the stovetop method to follow instructions because long-grain rice, short-grain rice, and all the other types have different cooking times, and in some cases, different water to rice ratios. And that’s before we get into “all the best tricks a grandma taught you about cooking rice”.
Now, if you’d like to have rice that’s interesting, consider swapping half of the water for a broth or stock. You can also add a bit of mirin to the rice water and give it a good mix. When I season the rice before cooking, my kids tend to go wild for it.
BBQ Memory Chicken & Rice Seasonings (left video pan)
- 2 – 3 TBSP Organic Maple Sugar
- 2 – 3 TBSP Organic Onion Granules (to taste)
- 1 TBSP Organic Dried Parsley
- 3 tsp Organic Smoked Paprika
- 1/2 – 1 tsp Organic Garlic Granules
Savory Chicken & Rice Ingredients (right video pan) Low FODMAP, Migraine Diets, GERD Compatible
- 1 TBSP Organic Dried Parsley
- 1.5 tsp Organic Dried Thyme
- 1/2 tsp Organic Dried Oregano
- 1/8 – 1/4 tsp Organic White Pepper (to taste, omit for GERD)
How to Store Leftovers
If you have chicken and rice leftovers, you’ll want to store them in an airtight container in your refrigerator and eat the leftovers within 5 days. Due to the low moisture content of the recipe as-is, this isn’t the type of gluten free dinner you want to freeze. Now, if you make something more creamy and freezer friendly, that’s a different conversation.
In my humble free-from opinion, the easiest way to store leftovers, at least for a family, is to use small airtight containers that are the perfect portions for your needs. This allows you to quickly grab a container from the fridge the next day, add it to a lunch box, and feel like you’ve hit the jackpot.
Depending on the rice you use, your leftovers may taste best when reheated. Some rice, like short grain brown rice, doesn’t taste awesome cold. On the other hand, cold sushi rice is pretty epic (think leftover fried rice in a carton).
Ways to Enhance Your Gluten Free Chicken and Rice
Now that you understand the basics of this gluten free rice recipe, we’re going to look at quite a few ways you can tweak this. Anytime someone is living the free-from life, I think it’s critical to understand how to make these kinds of changes on the fly so you can eat a variety of meals throughout the week, rather than get stuck in a food rut.
Make it Creamy
To make this more of a creamy dish, add in milk and an arrowroot slurry to your desired consistency at the end of cooking. Should you choose to add milk, you’ll need to increase your seasonings to prevent the dish from tasting bland. If you use something like chicken broth or chicken stock, it should already have plenty of seasoning.
If you’ve never made a creamy rice situation before, check out the recipe pictures on this page. I make an arrowroot slurry and you can see it in action.
Create a Cheesy Chicken & Rice Casserole
If you’re a fan of a good old fashioned casserole, here’s how you can take this chicken and rice recipe in that direction. Once you have your chicken and rice seasoned and mixed well, transfer all of it to a casserole dish. Spread it out so the dish is covered evenly.
Return your pan to the stovetop and add sliced or diced onion along with frozen peas. Cook until the onions are soft. Transfer that to your casserole dish and spread all over the chicken and rice.
Put gluten free breadcrumbs and a cheese of choice into the pan and mix it together (we’re using the pan like a mixing bowl to avoid dirtying another dish). Sprinkle this all over the top of the casserole dish and bake.
You can also add dried herbs such as parsley, or even a little thyme to keep things interesting. If I were making this, I’d be using dairy free Parmesan cheese as my cheese of choice. I’d probably mix in a little dairy free gouda as well since my kids tend to really like it.
Bake your casserole dish for 15 – 20 minutes to let everything meld together. Depending on your cheese, you may need to use the broil setting on your oven to get it to melt nicely.
Go Asian
You can tweak the seasonings to something like this:
- 3 – 4 TBSP Organic Maple Sugar
- 2 – 3 TBSP Organic Onion Granules (to taste)
- 1 TBSP Organic Dried Parsley
- 1.5 tsp Organic Ground Ginger
- 1/2 tsp Organic Ground Turmeric
- 1/2 tsp Organic Ground Mustard
- Pinch of a heat spice or black pepper (chipotle, sichuan pepper, etc.)
Once you have that as your spice blend, add something like soy sauce, coconut aminos, or gochujang (a Korean pepper paste that delivers great flavor with a spicy kick). You can also add a wide range of other gluten free Asian sauces. If you need good product leads, this article is super handy.
Create a Layered Dip Situation
You can think of this gluten free chicken and rice recipe as a vessel, ready to receive other flavours and ingredients. Have you seen that thing where people make a “pizza crust” from ground chicken? That’s kind of what we’re going for. You’ll cook the chicken and rice like I did in the video.
When it’s time to serve, place the rice mixture into a bowl, or on a small place. Add a layer of cooked pinto beans, sour cream, guacamole, charred corn, salsa, and shredded cheddar cheese. You know what… as I typed that, I was like, oh, that kind of sounds like a burrito, but without the wrap.
Now I’m just laughing at myself, but it’s still a solid idea. We’re calling it a layered dip because you’ll serve it with some grain free tortilla chips.
Make Your Chicken and Rice Like a Cream of Soup
Cream of celery, cream of mushroom, cream of whatever else is popular these days… Not all canned soup is gluten free, and usually, cream of X is off the menu. If you’d like to make something like those condensed soups at home, you can use this chicken and rice recipe as a bit of a base. Technically, you can skip the rice and use just the chicken, but let’s go for the complete meal this time.
You’ll want to heat the chicken and rice like I do in the video. Whilst that cooks, in a separate pan, you’re going to make a roux:
- 55g Butter or Dairy Free Butter
- 60g Gluten Free Flour of Choice (millet and sorghum flour combined will create a really cool flavour profile)
- 1.4L Milk of Choice (6.2 cups/49 ounces)
Melt butter or dairy free butter, then sprinkle the gluten free flour all over. Mix them together and a paste will form. Continue to cook for a minute or so, then add the milk. Mix everything together and continue to cook. By the time the milk is hot, you should have a thickened milk/cream situation happening.
Once that forms, you can pour all of the chicken and rice into the creamy sauce. Mix everything together then assess if you should add more milk for a soupier effect.
Add EASY Vegetables
This gluten free chicken and rice recipe is primed and ready to take on a wide range of vegetables. Here are some easy veggies you can mix into the rice and chicken as it cooks:
- Frozen Peas (you can oven roast on a small pan, or add it to the stovetop pan first, cook for a few minutes, then add the rice and chicken)
- Roughly Chopped Fresh Spinach
- Steamed Broccoli Florets
- Shredded Carrots
- Small Diced Eggplant (small pieces will cook faster which is what we want in this case)
Make Creamy Rice with Peppers and Cabbage
For this, I want you to think chicken and rice meets stuffed peppers and stuffed cabbage in a back garden, have a little chat, and when they all leave together, the rice mixture is a fusion of all their best qualities.
You’ll need to dice bell peppers (any colour but red, yellow, and orange will be sweeter than green), and roughly chop cabbage. You don’t need a tonne, but a nice amount. Sliced or diced onions are also a great idea for this mash up.
Heat a large pan on medium heat and melt butter or heat olive oil (or another cooking fat you enjoy). Once it’s hot and ready, add all of the veggies and cook them until they’re soft and starting to caramelize a bit. From there, add the rice and chicken like in the video and finish cooking the meal.
The veggies will give the dish a bit of a creamy texture, however, you can amplify that by adding a little milk of choice towards the end of cooking.
Add Fresh Herbs
Fresh herbs can seriously jazz up a meal and it only requires a minimal amount of effort on your part. For the savory seasonings, chopped basil would be a great option. For the BBQ memory, chopped cilantro would make for an excellent garnish. Chopped fresh parsley would work for both variations.
You can also take inspiration from something like cilantro and keep walking in a Mexican direction and add a little roasted corn and fresh salsa. Talk about a small bowl of goodness.
chopped basil, chopped cilantro works if you take your spices in a Mexican direction, would be great with roasted corn (canned is fine)
Make it Crispy!
If you’ve never had the joy of eating crispy rice, it’s a pleasure to introduce you to the idea. To make crispy rice, add cooking fat to your heated pan, then add your cooked rice. Spread it all over the bottom of the pan evenly so you have the maximum amount of rice touching the hot oil. Don’t push it around, but let it sit and cook whilst getting crispy. On medium heat, start with 5-6 minutes, then peek at the bottom of the rice. If you’re using white rice, you might have some golden brown bits, and that’s exactly what you want.
When making crispy rice for a crowd, make it in smaller batches. If you just pile a bunch of rice into the pan, only a little will be crispy just because of how much is there.
If you go for this delicious route, split the spices between the chicken and rice, but cook them in separate pans, then serve the chicken over the oh so yummy crispy rice.
More Easy Dinner Recipes
If you need allergy friendly, gluten free meals, man have I got you COVERED.
- Stove Top Chicken and Rice Recipe (another easy gluten-free chicken recipe)
- Salmon Fried Rice Recipe (a super easy meal your whole family will still rave about years from now)
- Dairy, Egg, Nut Free Mac n Cheese (such a fantastic gluten + top 9 free dinner recipe, even if you have a selective/picky eater)
- Kid & Adult Friendly Chicken Tacos Recipe
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Answering Your Questions About This Gluten Free Chicken and Rice Recipe
Can I use rotisserie chicken for this recipe?
So, you and I both know that pre-cooked chicken is a great way to handle busy nights. In the case of this particular chicken recipe, you can use rotisserie chicken (or even leftover chicken from your fridge).
However, you’ll want to make sure you don’t overcook the chicken. One benefit to the pressure cooker chicken is that we have all that great cooking liquid (it’s almost like a chicken broth). Your chicken goes into the rice pot moist, which is fabulous.
Rotisserie chicken is dry by nature, so make sure you don’t over cook it, and have some chicken broth, chicken stock, or bone broth on hand. Add a little to the pot to ensure your perfect meal doesn’t turn into an offensive dry mess.
Also, be sure to use a safe option for rotisserie chicken since typical grocery stores will use ingredients that aren’t necessarily gluten free (spices, etc.).
Will this recipe work with wild rice?
In theory, this easy gluten free chicken dinner will work with wild rice. Wild rice isn’t something I’ve worked with, so cook the rice according to the package directions (or the way you like it), then follow the rest of the steps and recipe.
Can I use chicken breasts in the pressure cooker instead of thighs?
For this delicious gluten-free recipe, yes, you can use boneless skinless chicken breasts. When I do this, I cut the chicken breasts into long strips and pressure cook. The cooking time is usually a little shorter with chicken breasts, so start with 15 minutes if they’re raw (you’ll need more time if they’re frozen).
Pop the lid off and see if the chicken will shred. If it does, you’re ready roll and if not, add a few more minutes of cook time. From there, follow the rest of the steps as if you had chicken thigh.
Can I use this to make a gluten-free cream of chicken soup?
If you’re looking to make a homemade version of gluten-free cream of chicken soup, you could use the chicken portion of the recipe. Unless you plan on serving your soup over rice, you can skip making it (maybe make a different starch?)
If you plan to simmer the chicken, it’s best to reduce the cook time in the pressure cooker to ensure you have tender chicken, rather than dry and overcooked chicken.
What’s a good side dish for this dinner recipe?
Personally, I’d go with some kind of steamed or oven roasted vegetable, including frozen veggies. My kids LOVE this recipe for spiced carrots. I make it quiet a bit these days, and just tweak the spices a little so I feel like I’ve had a creative moment in the kitchen.
I also make them frozen green beans. I spread organic extra virgin olive oil on a baking tray, add the green beans, a little organic onion granules garlic granules, and nutritional yeast, toss, roast, and serve. For the record, my kids hated green beans until I made them like that one morning and they were like, only make them like this, forever.
Can I make the chicken in a slow cooker instead of pressure cooker?
Yes! You can absolutely make this gluten-free chicken recipe in a Crock Pot, or a multifunction cooker like an Instant Pot. The cooking time will be different, so you’ll need to look up the best practices and the amount of liquid to use for the chicken weight in this recipe.
Is this a good chicken and rice recipe for picky eaters?
Honestly, no two people are the same. Let’s say you have a child (like me) that detests rice. I mean, this kid would rather go hungry than eat any kind of rice dish. In their case, there are literally three types of rice dishes I know they’ll eat (and it’s hilarious because said child is almost upset that I cracked the code).
That kid will not eat this dish, and that’s OK. They like the chicken, and I’m cool with that because there’s protein on the plate. I try to keep other starches and carbs around that they do enjoy and for this kiddo, it’s usually chicken, some veggies, and fruit on the plate.
You may be in the same boat, or your kiddo may hate the spice blend. Now, what you could do to increase your chances of success is make the BBQ memory version, and add some chopped dates. Remember the old saying, a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down? Well, sometimes, an unrefined sweetener can make a dish very appealing to a picky eater.
Ultimately, get your kiddo involved with making the meal, and have them sample the chicken and rice separately, then put a little of each in a small bowl, mix it together, and have them try it again. Also ask them if they’d like an extra sauce etc. that could make the meal more approachable for them.
I know that wasn’t a yes or no answer, but when it comes to selective and picky eating, is there ever a yes/no answer? Have fun!
Can I use whole ingredients instead of spices?
Absolutely! The goal of easy gluten free chicken and rice recipe is to create the simplest version of this style of meal to help you get dinner on the table quickly. It can also be helpful if you don’t have whole ingredients in the fridge at the moment.
Easy substitutions for this recipe: Use whole diced onion (brown or caramelized first), chop fresh garlic to mix in, and use pan seared bell pepper. These replace your onion, garlic, and smoked paprika.
