This Copycat Cilantro Lime Rice Rivals Your Favorite Restaurant’s Version

Chipotle’s cilantro lime rice is a cult classic and for good reason. Devoted customers absolutely crave this side dish, which is made with long grain white rice, a splash of fresh lime juice, and a hearty handful of cilantro stirred in. While it does serve as a subtle support cast to the other bold flavors on the menu, it’s also flecked with enough fresh flavor to give it its own personality and pizzazz (and fan club). All that’s missing is the copycat adobo chicken!

The Secret Ingredients to Great Cilantro Lime Rice

While we get the three main ingredients (they’re all in the recipe title, after all), there are two unusual suspects that appear in this copycat recipe. First, you’ll need a bay leaf to simmer with the rice. While bay leaves don’t have a strong outstanding flavor of their own, it essentially deepens and enhances the other flavors of the rice. Just simmer the leaf with the rice and remove it before stirring in the other ingredients—it’s not something you want to accidentally take a bite out of later. If you can’t find bay leaves, it’s not going to ruin the dish if you leave it out.

The second unusual ingredient is lemon juice. You thought this was a lime-flavored rice, right? While that is true, we call for the lime and lemon juices here in a 2:1 ratio, so the lime is more pronounced. But the slightly sweeter lemon juice is added to help balance the bitterness of lime. Take note: We do call for FRESH squeezed lime and lemon juices because this dish is depending on those two ingredients to lead the flavor experience—and in this case, fresh juice is definitely superior. Bottled lime juice and lemon juice are acceptable when used in small quantities for a dish, but only when the flavor profile is not reliant upon it.

How to Buy Fresh Cilantro

Another ingredient that you must use the fresh (not dried) option for is cilantro. When you go to the supermarket, you’ll find fresh bunches of cilantro and flat-leaf parsley right next to each other in the produce section. Unfortunately, they look very similar to one another, so be sure you are grabbing the cilantro. Flat-leaf parsley has pointier tips to its leaves, while the ends of cilantro leaves are rounder. Store cilantro in the refrigerator with the stem ends in a cup of water and covered loosely with a plastic bag. This will keep the herb bundle fresh for longer.