Although rice is usually soaked, the pressure cooker hurries the process along so that you can get in 1 minute what would ordinarily take 8 hours. This drink is refreshing, lightly sweetened with just a hint of cinnamon.
This is a custom recipe that I wrote for Mealthy, as part of a large commission of custom recipes they requested to launch their new electric new pressure multicooker. When I learned the founder is a globe-trotting, Italian-speaking, salsa-dancing Mexican entrepreneur, I was immediately inspired to create something special.
My research took me to several Spanish-language blogs that instructed the cook to boil the rice before proceeding with the recipe – so I just did that step in the pressure cooker and then tweaked the ingredient quantities until the flavor was pretty close to the weekly Horchata I used to drink at my local burrito joint in San Mateo, California.
Cooking the rice releases and thickens some of the starch making this drink lightly viscous (the consistency of whole cow’s milk, for example). This recipe is easily doubled, tripled or more – see the instructions on the Mealthy website to learn how.
| Pressure Cooker | Accessories | Pr. Cook Time | Pr. Level | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 L or larger | none | 1 min. | High(2) | 10-Min. Natural |
(per serving)
- Serves: 8 1-cup servings.
- Serving size: 1 cup
- Calories: 133.8
- TOTAL Fat: 2.6g
- TOTAL Carbs: 24.6g
- Sugar Carbs: 20.1g
- Sodium: 35mg
- Fiber Carbs: 0.1g
- Protein: 3g
- Cholesterol: 8.8mg
- 2 cups (500ml) water
- ¼ cup (65ml) short-grain rice
- ¼ stick cinnamon (or ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon)
- ½ (14 ounce /415ml) can sweetened condensed milk
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 cups (1L) cold water
- Get the recipe instructions from the Mealthy Recipe Website by following this link.
Excited to try this. On the Mealthy site the recipe calls for condensed milk but here on this site it calls for sweetened condensed milk. Which one is correct?
It should be “sweetened” as the recipe does not contain any other sugar, and the result is refereshingly sweet.
Ciao,
L
I checked the horchata recipe on the Mealthy site and have a question:
On this page it says sweetened condensed milk, but on the Mealthy site it says condensed milk.
I didn’t notice until I saw a review that added sugar….
Which should it be?
I think I should ask Mealthy to fix it on their website. It should be “sweetened condensed milk”. The word may have been inadvertently removed when they removed the metric measurements before posting it online – even for custom recipes I always supply both imperial and metric measurements. ; )
Ciao,
L
Thanks for bringing this up – it’s now fixed on our site!
Wow, that was faster than I could type the e-mail.
Thanks!
L
I have a dumb question. What would short grain rice be considered? I can only find long grain rice at my local store, at least that’s how it’s labeled on their packages.
Myda, short-grain rice is fat and rounder than say… Basmati which is a long-grain rice. If you have a “latin” section in your supermarket (even better, a Mexican neighborhood) or have a mart that carries Goya brand, their Valencia Rice, or California Pearl rice is also short-grain. You can also use Arborio or risotto rice in a pinch (it is also short-grain ; ).
It looks like this… I would call them pointy tic-tacs!
https://www.mexgrocer.com/goya-2625.html
Ciao,
L
is sushi rice a short grain or is that something all together different?
It is short grain, but it is also “sticky” rice which produces lots of starch. This might be OK for making horchata – but it would thicken the base more than expected. I haven’t tried it – if you do, please come back to let us know how it worked!
Ciao,
L
I will try it and let you know. We just got back from 3 months in Mexico where I got to drink lots and lots of horchata. I belong to Rancho Gordo bean club and we just got stick cinnamon in our shipment so that must be a sign for me to try this recipe LOL Thank you
I looked at the instructions on Mealthy to increase the size of the recipe, but it doesn’t make sense to me. It seems like doubling the recipe, but using only 2 cups water in the PC, would mean diluting the horchata.:
“This recipe makes more than six cups. You can double or even quadruple the recipe, but keep the water amount for the pressure cooker at two cups.”
Rick, you only need as much water in the cooker for it to reach pressure and soften the rice. By doubling the recipe you are actually concentrating the Horchata, not diluting it. Here’s how it actually works out…
Single: 1/4 cup rice, 2 cups water
Double: 1/2 cup rice, 2 cups water
Triple: 3/4 cup rice, 2 cups water
Quadruple: 1 cup rice, 2 cups water
Quintuple: 1 1/4 cups rice, 2 cups water
…every other ingredient in the recipe is then doubled, tripled, etc.
Ciao and have a great party!!
L
Laura, thank you for the clarification!
Is it possible to make this recipe dairy free? Is there a substitute for the condensed milk?
Absolutely – though I have not tried it myself. I found this really good substitute for dairy-free condensed milk. I imagine you can use any milk-substitute and sweetener you prefer!
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/2013/11/dairy-free-sweetened-condensed-milk/
Ciao,
L
Wow, that Mealthy cook looks just like the instant Pot. Anyway, my oldest daughter loves Horchata, so I’ll have to try making this for her in my Instant Pot sometime; thanks for the recipe!
I saw sweetened condensed coconut the other day at Walmart in the canned milk section as well as in the Mexican foods section.
The link to the Mealthy website doesn’t have any ingredients or instructions. Basically, no recipe. Can you post your instructions?? Thanks.
Denise, the full instructions can be found here:
https://mealthy.com/recipes/1579/pressure-cooker-horchata-mexican-sweet-rice-drink
Ciao!
L