Mama’s Brown Rice (Not the Healthy Kind, the Beefy, Buttery Kind!)

Rice browned in butter then baked in beef consommé for an absolutely perfectly cooked recipe easy enough for weeknight meals and special enough for holiday dinners!

JUMP TO RECIPE

Here I sit, yet again, thinking my family’s way of cooking something was the way everybody cooked it. 

I’ve been running this blog, publishing recipes for over ten years, and could have shared this a thousand times by now but never did because it’s one of those recipes I just assumed everybody already had.

But nope. At least not from what I’m seeing online. I can’t find one single recipe exactly like this one. And I’ve spent all morning looking.

What got me looking was I couldn’t figure out what to call this so I wanted to see what everybody else calls it. We just call it brown rice.

But it’s not actually brown rice. Brown rice is the less processed, somewhat healthier form of rice that still has the bran and germ (unlike traditional white rice which does not).

This recipe is actually browned rice – traditional white rice that’s been sautéed in butter until lightly browned and almost nutty in fragrance – that’s then made further brown by cooking in beef consommé.

I still don’t know what to call this but I’m hoping inspiration strikes before I get to the recipe.

The main differences in our recipe and the ones I see online are:

Less butter – most recipes use twice the amount of butter as this one. Most use 1 stick of butter like this one does but this recipe makes twice the amount (this uses 2 cups of rice, most other recipes use 1 cup). As much as I love butter, I honestly think 1/2 cup of butter is way too much for a recipe with just 1 cup of rice.

Sautéing the rice – many of the recipes I see add cold butter to the dish before baking. Our recipe uses the butter to sauté the rice (to brown it) which adds so much flavor and texture. I mentioned it in my Mexican Restaurant-Style Rice recipe, but sautéing the rice does something to the texture that helps it hold up better – it makes it almost (but not quite) chewy (in a good way!).

Beef Consommé – our recipe uses all beef consommé. I do see recipes online that use it, though about half use French onion soup. I definitely prefer it with beef consommé but I’ve used French Onion and Beefy Mushroom soups (and combos of the three) and like those options too. 

Beef consommé is a little different than other beef soups. It's a bone broth that's highly reduced then also clarified so the flavor is extra concentrated. Because it's a condensed bone broth, it's naturally thicker (slightly gelatinous) due to the collagen. I think that richness really comes through in this recipe. The consommé just seems to “stand up” in this where the others can seem a little watery and weak. 

Mama sautés a diced onion with her rice. Sometimes I do too but since I usually don’t, I didn’t add it to the recipe below. If you’d like to, simply finely dice a small onion then add it to the butter with the rice when following the recipe below.

This recipe is such a favorite in my family, it comes out at the BIG meals like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. It goes great with baked ham and I almost always serve the two together. 

You can reduce or increase the recipe very easily. The cooking times stay the same – just use a smaller or larger dish of course. Here are the ratios for the ingredients:

Welp, I didn’t come up with anything clever to call this so I’m just going to call it Mama’s Brown Rice and hope that the “Mama” part might tip somebody off that this isn’t the whole grain healthy stuff (that has the texture of what I imagine my ottoman poof is stuffed with).

I’m sure you have a version of this you enjoy but I sure hope you try this one too! We love it so much! Our college junior was on her way out the door, I told her I’d made this for y’all and there was a whole pan in the fridge and the next thing I heard was the microwave beeping. When something’s good enough to make a 20-yr old carb-counting coed circle back for leftovers, it’s good y’all. 

NOTES ABOUT MAKING BEEFY BROWN RICE:

• You can use French Onion or Beefy Mushroom soup as well or a combination of the three. I have and enjoy them but definitely like the more condensed beef flavor in the consommé best. 
• Feel free to add finely diced onion when sautéing the rice – that’s how Mama usually makes it!
• I have no clue how to make this with actual whole grain brown rice. I’m sure it can be done but I couldn’t tell you how long to cook it.
• To reduce or increase the recipe, see the table above. Cooking time and temperature will stay the same.
• Do not add salt to this recipe. This is a frog's hair from being too salty so if you're sensitive to salt, consider subbing 1 can of the beef consommé with reduced sodium beef broth and using unsalted butter. 
• You must cover the dish tightly with foil and start with a hot oven for the rice to cook properly.
• The dish won’t boil over so you can fill it pretty full (don’t go wild – no closer than half an inch from the top). If you bake it in something much wider than needed (making it very shallow) it will likely be done quicker than an hour so check it early.

Recipe for Beefy Brown Rice

brown, browned, rice, stick of butter, beef consomme, consome, consume, bullion, broth, french onion, beefy, mushroom, paula deen, fried, sauteed, onion, baked, casserole, bake, covered dish, side dish, potluck

covered dish, side dish, potluck

Yield: 8 Servings

Author: Mandy Rivers | South Your Mouth

Mama’s Brown Rice (Not the Healthy Kind, the Beefy, Buttery Kind!)

Rice browned in butter then baked in beef consommé for an absolutely perfectly cooked recipe easy enough for weeknight meals and special enough for holiday dinners!

Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 1 HourTotal time: 1 H & 5 M

Ingredients

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
• 2 cups uncooked long-grain white rice
• 4 10.5-oz cans beef consommé

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add rice then sauté for about 5 minutes or until rice is light brown. The butter will become foamy and lovely and the rice will start to smell somewhat nutty.
3. Pour rice and butter into a 2-quart baking dish then add beef consommé. Cover tightly with two layers of aluminum foil then bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.
4. Remove from oven, fluff rice with a fork, then serve.

Notes

• You can use French Onion or Beefy Mushroom soup as well or a combination of the three. I have and enjoy them but definitely like the more condensed beef flavor in the consommé best. 
• Feel free to add finely diced onion when sautéing the rice – that’s how Mama usually makes it!
• I have no clue how to make this with actual whole grain brown rice. I’m sure it can be done but I couldn’t tell you how long to cook it.
• To reduce or increase the recipe, see the table above.
• Do not add salt to this recipe. This is a frog's hair from being too salty so if you're sensitive to salt, consider subbing 1 can of the beef consommé with reduced sodium beef broth and using unsalted butter. 
• You must cover the dish tightly with foil and start with a hot oven for the rice to cook properly.
• The dish won’t boil over so you can fill it pretty full (don’t go wild – no closer than half an inch from the top). If you bake it in something much wider than needed (making it very shallow) it will likely be done quicker than an hour so check it early.

https://www.southyourmouth.com/2021/08/mamas-brown-rice-not-healthy-kind-beefy.html

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