Rice-a-Roni Copycat - Easy

Love Rice-a-roni (or whatever brand you usually buy) but hate spending so much money for so few servings?  Want to learn how to quickly and easily make it yourself for practically pennies a serving?  You've come to the right place!

After making this recipe oodles of times with vermicelli pasta, I discovered that fine egg noodles are even thinner and easier to work with.  Instead of standing there and breaking the long pasta into small pieces which were always too long and had to be crushed to get the right clone size,  I start out instead with egg noodles and go straight to crush.  With (preferably) clean hands, delicate fine noodles quickly break into the perfect size.  A quick saute, then dump in the rice followed by the broth.  Fifteen minutes later you are enjoying a side-dish, or the base for some other dish tossed on top.  Easy-peasy!

Not The Real Thing.

Since I grew up eating The Real Thing, my clone uses powdered veggie broth to approximate the chemical original chicken-ish flavor, and butter or olive oil depending upon what the main course is.  Feel free to sub margarine for the fat, and real chicken broth for the veggie version.  I haven't made this recipe with yolk-free noodles yet so I can't vouch for the flavor, so if you try it, please let me know in the comments.


Rice-a-Roni Copycat - Easy
Yield: 4 servings

1 Tbl. unsalted butter or olive oil
1 cup fine egg noodles
1 cup white rice
2 cups vegetarian chicken broth (2 tsp. powdered bouillon mixed into 2 cups water)

Plenty room for a few more noodles.

 Crush fine egg noodles with your hand until the noodles are around 1/2 inch in length.   

You will have about 1/2 cup of crushed noodles.  Set aside.

Heat butter or olive oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. 

Add noodles, and saute for about 3 minutes, or until almost all the noodles are a toasty brown.  Don't try to toast every single noodle because they brown unevenly and you will wind up burning most of it.  And not in a good way.

Add the rice and continue to stir for 1 minute.

Remove skillet from burner.  Slowly stir in the broth.  Return skillet to burner, and increase heat to medium high. 

When mixture comes to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 15-18 minutes, or until all the broth is absorbed.  

The noodles will rise to the top as the broth simmers.

Gently fluff with a fork to redistribute the noodles back into the rice before serving.