Making riced broccoli yourself is as easy as can be, it makes a simple side dish and also works well as a rice or pasta substitute.
Broccoli is one of the most healthy recipes out there since it's high in fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin A, and other nutrients too. It makes the perfect vegetable whether you're looking for low carb recipes, gluten-free, paleo, or are vegetarian. My husband is following a keto diet, so riced broccoli (keto style) is a regular go-to recipe.
What is Riced Broccoli?
Maybe you're coming across this post and maybe you haven't ever tried riced broccoli before or even know what it is.
Riced broccoli is a wonderful grain-free substitute for rice or other types of grains that is made from finely cut broccoli pieces.
You'll often hear the terms riced broccoli or broccoli rice used interchangeably. When I'm substituting broccoli rice in a recipe for something like rice, because it doesn't take long to cook I’ll sometimes sauté it separately and add it at the end.
In general, when you purchase a bag of riced broccoli at the grocery store, most of the broccoli pieces are actually from the step...not the crown. Who knew? That makes broccoli rice the perfect use for the broccoli stems after you’ve used the broccoli crown for a different recipe.
We regularly buy bagged Trader Joe's riced broccoli and cauliflower when we don't have time to make our own.
I recently made a cold broccoli salad and an instant pot broccoli soup, I was left with quite a bit of stem pieces and wanted to find a way to use them up.
I’m going to admit, it wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I had a mind-blowing experience at a friend's house when I sought my friend's mom peeling and chopping the broccoli stamps and cooking them with the crowns.
I grew up in a household that we threw the stem part away, which is basically half of the broccoli! Yep, that’s right my friends, the stock of the broccoli is totally edible. And delicious!
Riced broccoli truly makes the easiest and perfect recipe for using up the rest of that broccoli instead of tossing it.
How to Make Broccoli Rice
We experimented with numerous riced broccoli methods so we could figure out what worked the best. Here's a list of methods we tried:
Broccoli with crowns in a food processor
Broccoli stems in a food processor
Broccoli in a blender
Broccoli in a kitchen-aid mixer
Hand-cut broccoli
Plus, a simple cooked broccoli rice dish
Ingredients Needed
You'll just need broccoli if you're only trying to rice it, if you want to turn it into a riced broccoli recipe you'll also need olive oil, salt, and pepper.
1 lb of broccoli
1 T olive oil
Salt and pepper
Supplies We Used
Food Processor - I admit I found this popular brand new in the box at a garage sale one year. It's still going strong 16 years later!
A High Powered Blender
The exact knife I use daily in my kitchen
Riced Broccoli Experiment #1
Broccoli rice experiment one involved using broccoli crowns.
Knowing that that broccoli rice mostly consists of the broccoli stem, I decided to make a batch of riced broccoli from just the crown to see how it would turn out. Using a food processor, it only took 1o seconds to turn an entire head of broccoli crowns into broccoli rice.
We ended up cooking it on the stovetop with olive oil, salt, and pepper to make a simple riced broccoli side dish. The result? It was good!....but not great. I didn't really love the taste of broccoli crown riced broccoli, which is interesting since broccoli is my favorite vegetable.
Broccoli Rice Experiment #2
Broccoli rice experiment #2 played around with different ways to finely chop broccoli stems. Here are 3 ways that work to cut finely chopped broccoli:
Chop it finely with a knife
Chop it in a food processor
Chop it in a high powered blender
Before you turn your broccoli into rice, I cut off any floret pieces and set them aside, and also peel the outer stock off of that broccoli.
Here’s an example of what that looks like.
Something I totally love to use in the kitchen is called a garbage bowl. I actually first heard about a garbage bowl from Giada De Laurentiis who has this exact same ball in a different color! I instantly went to Amazon and purchased the XL sized bowl for myself.
Well yes, the bowl is enormous and I technically didn’t need one that large, but it's perfect for food waste that you can hopefully compost, or it’s also ideal when you’re making a double batch of your favorite cookies in need a gigantic bowl.
After removing any broccoli floret bits and peeling the stocks, here’s what you’ll end up with:
I then cut the pieces into about 2-inch size sections to make them easier to cut.
In the Food Processor
We first tried making riced broccoli in the food processor. We already knew from experiment 1 that anything that cuts pretty evenly and only takes 10 seconds is a winner.
You might be surprised to learn you can use either the blade or the grating/shredding attachment to make broccoli rice, both work very well!
And guess what? Chopping broccoli stems in the food processor with the blade is a total champ and you'll end up with riced broccoli in 10 seconds that's *mostly* uniform in size.
If you have a grating attachment that'll make it even more uniform in size.
I’m going to be straight upfront that my favorite way to shop broccoli is in a food processor (sorry if you wanted to read all of my experiments before finding out the winner haha!) There were a few larger chunks that didn’t get processed, it was easy to just add that to the next batch of rice broccoli or to chop it by hand.
I was seriously impressed making broccoli rice in a food processor!
With a Blender
Our second attempt using broccoli stems was to see how well it could get finely chopped in a high powered blender. Our blender is a Ninja and has 3 blades, which make an enormous difference in how well something gets uniformly cut in a blender.
If you're using a regular blender that has one blade at the bottom....this might not work.
Using a high-powered blender on high for 15 seconds also works pretty well, but the pieces weren’t as uniform as compared to the food processor and the broccoli pieces on the bottom were actually too fine. I'm fairly certain I could've made "broccoli soup" if I kept the blender on longer.
My recommendation if you have a high powered blender and not a food processor, and don’t want to chop your broccoli:
Pulse the broccoli for five seconds and then push down the sides with a spatula. Repeat this every 5 seconds until you get the desired riced broccoli consistently. It should only take 15-20 seconds total to make broccoli rice with a blender.
Riced Broccoli by Hand
So I'm going to admit upfront that I don't have any photos from attempting to make riced broccoli finely chopped with a knife. I realized quickly I'm just not patient enough to chop the broccoli that way....especially since I'd already made a batch in 10 seconds in my garage sale food processor.
If you want broccoli rice and don't have a food processor, high powered blender and don't want to buy broccoli rice, this is a great option (that just takes a little longer).
Failed Experiment!
Since I was experimenting with all the different ways to make easy riced broccoli, I also added some to my stand mixer just to see what would happen.
This idea didn't last long, since 3 seconds in the stand mixer was flinging broccoli chunks into the air and at my face.
Looking at the pieces that did start cutting, this method wasn't going to work well. Sorry, no photos! It all happened so fast!
If by chance you have a grating attachment for your food processor, then you could use that to make easy riced broccoli.
Riced Broccoli Recipes
Here's our go-to recipe for making a simple sautéed broccoli rice dish. This is the most common way we eat broccoli rice when it's basically getting used as a grain substitute on the side with the main dish.
Easy Riced Broccoli Recipe
2 cups riced broccoli
1 T olive oil
1:
¼ teaspoon salt or garlic salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat.
Turn down to medium-low if your pan starts smoking (I was using cast iron which sometimes gets a little smokey). My regular aluminum pans don't do this.
You definitely need to try these broccoli cheddar fritters, they were a hit and is another favorite riced broccoli recipe of ours.
We hope you enjoyed our post about all the different ways you can make riced broccoli and some of our favorite easy broccoli rice recipes.
We'd love your feedback in the comments or would love seeing your photos on the Pinterest pin 🙂
More Broccoli Recipes
- Raw broccoli salad
- Broccoli Cakes
- Instant PotBroccoli Cheddar Soup
- Roasted Broccoli Recipe
- Homemade Cheddar Sauce
- Making Riced Broccoli
- Chicken Casserole with Broccoli
- How to Cook Broccoli in the Microwave
How to Make Riced Broccoli
Yield: 4-6 servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
3 different ways to make riced broccoli plus a simple recipe for making broccoli rice as a grain substitute and side dish.
Ingredients
- 1 bunch broccoli
- 1 T+ olive oil
- ¼+ teaspoon salt or garlic salt
- ¼+ teaspoon ground pepper
Instructions
- Cut the broccoli head off of the broccoli, set aside for another use. The broccoli rice is made with the broccoli stalk.
- Peel the broccoli stalk and cut into 2" chunks
- Grate in a food processor for 10 seconds
- To cook the riced broccoli, heat the oil in a pan on medium heat
- Add 2 cups of riced broccoli and the salt and pepper. If you have more than 2 cups of broccoli rice then adjust the oil amount and seasonings accordingly
- Cook the broccoli for 3-4 minutes, stirring often to make sure it's cooking evenly and not browning
Nutrition Information
Yield 4Serving Size 1
Amount Per ServingCalories 35Total Fat 3gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 3gCholesterol 0mgSodium 685mgCarbohydrates 1gFiber 0gSugar 0gProtein 0g
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