If you are looking for an alternative to plain white rice, this recipe is for you. This multigrain rice is full of fibre and nutrients; with some changes, it will not have a prolonged effect on your blood sugar. It is simple and adjustable to whatever you have in your pantry.

This year, I aimed to eat more fibre, focusing primarily on whole grains and Indigenous African ingredients but not forsaking flavour. With this goal in mind, I wanted to find ways to incorporate more fibre without drastically changing my diet. Enter multigrain rice. Like many Africans, I eat a lot of rice, so this was a great starting point for me. Multigrain rice is not a new concept to me. As a child, my mother used to mix white and brown rice together. I also purchased premade multigrain mixed from my local Asian markets and bulk stores.

What is Multigrain Rice

Multigrain rice is simply a mix of rice, grains and legumes. Everyone has their own mix, but the goal is to enjoy rice while also enjoying fibre and nutrient-dense grains. You will often see a combination of brown, purple or red rice, grains like buckwheat, sorghum or barley and split legumes like mung beans and lentils. My mixed rice recipe will focus on just rice and grains. Adding these ingredients is meant to boost the fibre content of the mixed grains and better affect your body.

What is Fibre and Why is it Important?

Fibre is defined as a category of plant material that cannot be digested by our body; these include cell walls, carbohydrate structures, as well as resistant/retrograde starch. These plant materials pass through the small intestines into the large intestine, where they are fermented by the gut microbiome and broken into smaller molecules, some of them classified as short-chain fatty acids. This is where the true benefits of fibre are fully realized.

Fibre positively impact your colon microbiome as a prebiotic, as well as your immune system and metabolic systems, which include blood sugar regulation, lipid management and gut lining. Fermenting fibre feeds the gut microbiome, which increases their numbers, and can help with passing stool as they can draw in moisture to help with stool softening. Short-chain fatty acids have been positively implicated in the reduction of colon cancer risk, increasing satiety, reducing inflammation, improving blood sugar levels, and many more cardiovascular benefits. So when you add fibre to your rice, you are adding more benefits to your dish .

Turning White Rice into fibre

Most often, when rice is processed to obtain white polished rice, the husk, bran or germs are removed. Consequently, the insoluble fibres, antioxidants and minerals are stripped away from the rice. This is not to say that white rice is devoid of anything (I enjoy it all the time) but to draw attention to what has been removed. However, all is not lost. To get more out of this recipe, I always meal prep it and store it in single or double servings in my freezer. Cooling down grains like rice, wheat, or potatoes is a great way to increase the resistant starch content.

Resistant starch 3, also known as retrograde starch, behaves like a dietary fibre, occurs when some of the starch in cooked grains like rice revert to complex structures when cooled down making it difficult for the enzymes that break down sugars in our small intestines to fully break them down. They effectively become a fibre. Not all the starch in white rice will revert to these complex structures so your blood sugar will still spike, but not to the extent of eating freshly cooked white rice, even after it is reheated.

What you will need for this recipe

This recipe focuses on two categories: hard and soft grains. The hard grains are cooked first before the soft grains are included. This principle can allow you to mix and match hard and soft grains. As someone focused on African ingredients, I chose indigenous African products but have left suggestions for alternative grains.

Hard Grains

• Sorghum: Sorghum, also known as guinea corn, is an Indigenous African grain that has been part of our diets for millennia. It is high in insoluble fibre, along with B Vitamins, Vitamin E, magnesium, copper and phosphorus. Sorghum is easy to find. You can purchase it at your local Indian store as jowar or any health food store.
• Millet: I am sticking to pearl millet, which is an indigenous West African grain. Similar to sorghum, millet is also an amazing superfood and a great source of fibre, magnesium, zinc and B vitamin. Pearl millet can be found at your local Indian store and bajri. Beyond pearl millet, any type of millet should suffice.
• Brown Rice: With most of the husk, bran and germ kept intact, there is more dietary fibre, antioxidants, phosphorus and B. vitamins in brown rice.
• Indigenous African Brown Rice: Technically, it is red rice but we call it brown rice in Ghana. Feel free to use red rice.
• Other hard grains you can use are buckwheat, any millet of choice, hulled barley, farro or any type of hard rice like red rice or black rice.

Soft Grains

• White Rice: My usual choice is jasmine rice. But to stick to the African theme, I am using Oryza Glamerimma (West African rice), which is one of two oryzza grass species domesticated. Indigenous African rice cooks the same and tastes the same as any regular Asian rice. They tend to be short grains because they break easily. If I am out of my indigenous rice, I use jasmine rice.
• Other soft grains you can use include quinoa, amaranth or fonio.

How to make Multigrain rice.

This recipe focuses on ratios. 1 part hard grain, 2 parts liquid, cooked halfway, then 1 part white rice, 1/3 part water. If you have a total of 2 cups of hard grain, you will boil it with 4 cups of water for 25 minutes, then add 2 cups of white rice and an additional 2/3 cup of water and cook for another 25 minutes at low heat, a total of 50 minutes. This recipe is strictly for stovetop cooking. I have also not tested this recipe by soaking the grains. I will report back if I do.

How to serve Multigrain Rice.

• Serve like any rice
• Turn into fried rice
• Add it to your salads.

Recipe