20 Delicious Ingredients To Upgrade Rice-A-Roni

Rice-A-Roni is a carb lover's dream come true. The classic versions contain both rice and pasta, mixed together into one seasoned dish that requires very little thought to throw together on a busy night. Whether you choose to use it as a side dish or want to make it the star of the show, Rice-A-Roni is one of those busy night staples that can sometimes feel like a step up from your average frozen meal.

But let's be honest: Rice-A-Roni on its own is kind of a sad meal, and even as a side dish, it needs a little something extra to make it as appealing as possible. Luckily, there are a ton of different ingredients you can add to your Rice-A-Roni to boost the flavor and make it taste like it didn't come out of a box. We've compiled a list of some of our favorite Rice-A-Roni additions, so feel free to use these ideas or let them inspire you to come up with your own. Rice-A-Roni has never tasted so good.

Rice-A-Roni comes with the rice and pasta mix, along with a seasoning packet. Once you add water to that packet, it becomes a broth that you cook the rice mixture in. However, you don't have to stop there if you want to add even more flavor to the dish. Adding in another type of broth or using bouillon cubes can give your Rice-A-Roni a stronger, more concentrated flavor, and it can even give it more complexity if you choose to use a different flavor of broth. Just make sure you don't add too much salt — with all that broth, things can get too salty fast.

When you're cooking your Rice-A-Roni, you can decide how brothy you want it to be. Add that extra broth in at the end if you want to make the dish soupier.

Generally, Rice-A-Roni will call for butter or margarine right on the box. You'll toast the rice and pasta mixture in that butter before adding the seasonings and simmering it for a while. But why settle for plain old boring butter when you could add even more flavor to the dish? That's why we recommend starting with garlic butter. It infuses your Rice-A-Roni with a pungent garlicky flavor that makes for a far more flavorful dish.

You can always buy pre-made garlic butter at the store if you don't want to go through the hassle of making it yourself, but it's super easy to whip garlic butter up at home, too. Use minced fresh garlic for the best possible flavor, combining it with the butter before toasting your rice and pasta mixture.

Unless you're not very hungry at all, Rice-A-Roni doesn't exactly count as a whole meal. Rather, it usually functions as a side dish, an afterthought to the main course. But no more. Rice-A-Roni deserves to take center stage, and it can do just that when it's prepared with a protein like sausage. We particularly like sausage for this dish because it's already seasoned, which, when combined with the Rice-A-Roni, means that you don't have to think about adding a ton of seasonings to the dish — they're already there.

Start cooking your sausage before you add in the Rice-A-Roni, stirring it all together once the sausage has been nice and browned. Throw in some veggies, and you have a complete meal that takes no time at all to prepare.

Most of us need to work more vegetables into our diets, but it can be difficult if you don't necessarily enjoy your veggies. One easy way to incorporate more vegetables into your meal is to mix them into other foods you tend to like more. And because Rice-A-Roni is so well-seasoned, it makes the perfect vehicle for your veggies. Just dice them up into small pieces, then add them to the pan before you throw in the rice and pasta mixture.

Wondering what veggies to use here? Your options are limitless. Onions make for a flavorful base, while mushrooms and zucchini can add some bulk to the dish. Bell peppers offer the Rice-A-Roni a bold, fresh color, and celery makes for a neutral vegetable addition even kids aren't likely to notice.

Perhaps the main appeal of Rice-A-Roni is the fact that it comes with all the seasonings in a packet, so you don't have to think about it. For people who don't love to cook — or just don't have time to do it from scratch on a regular basis — a seasoning mix can be a lifesaver. But that doesn't mean you should always depend on prepared seasoning mixes to harness the flavors you love. Why not add an extra layer of flavor to your Rice-A-Roni by incorporating fresh herbs into the recipe?

Just a few simple herbs can make a big difference in your Rice-A-Roni dish. A sprinkle of fresh parsley or chives, for example, can make a pot of Rice-A-Roni taste fresher and look more appealing without much extra effort at all.

Look at most boxes of Rice-A-Roni, and you'll see that they call for milk. Luckily, you can use pretty much any type of milk you want, so whatever you have in the fridge already will probably work well. But if you're really trying to make the best possible Rice-A-Roni, then you may want to spring for whole milk specifically. You may not think it makes much of a difference, but you can taste a lot more body when you choose to use whole milk instead of lower-fat varieties.

Whole milk, with its creamier texture and richer flavor profile, is an easy swap that makes for a significantly more delicious dish. Don't want to use whole milk? Then, you may want to opt for a creamier plant-based milk in place of, say, almond milk. We particularly like cashew milk.

Another easy and cost-effective way to turn Rice-A-Roni from a side dish into a full meal is by adding another simple pantry staple to the mix. Although it may not be the most typical pairing, canned tuna can add a lot of nutrition to the dish in addition to providing it with a seafood-forward flavor that you can't get from the typical Rice-A-Roni flavors alone. We like this hack because it doesn't require you to cook any protein from scratch — just open up a can of tuna and stir it into your Rice-A-Roni.

For best results, add in the drained tuna when you're toasting the rice and pasta mixture. That way, it'll cook with the rest of the ingredients, allowing those flavors to mesh well.

Don't want to make a separate main dish to enjoy with your Rice-A-Roni? If not, you can easily just mix the other ingredients in with the rice and pasta and make a delicious, one-pot recipe that you can come back to time and time again, even on the busiest nights of your week. That's why we love adding ground beef to our Rice-A-Roni. Ground beef is exceedingly easy to cook, even for those who don't do it often, and it's a simple way to add protein to this otherwise carb-heavy dish.

Of course, ground beef pairs particularly well with the beef flavor of Rice-A-Roni, but you can also get creative and add it to other flavors. For example, it can make an interesting addition to the jalapeño cheddar and Spanish rice flavors.

Let's face it: Rice-A-Roni is mostly about flavor, not texture. Sure, there's the combo of rice and pasta, which makes for an interesting bite, but overall, this is a texturally soft dish that doesn't offer much in the way of variety. That's why you may want to add a crispy or crunchy element to the dish before you serve it. Bread crumbs can do just that. Panko bread crumbs offer more of a crunch than other varieties, but any type of bread crumbs you have on hand can work here (even homemade).

If you want to keep things simple, you can just sprinkle some of those bread crumbs on the finished dish. To elevate things even more, though, pour the Rice-A-Roni into an oven-safe dish, top with bread crumbs, and toast the top in the oven before serving.

Many of Rice-A-Roni's flavors contain garlic, which is part of what makes them taste so good. But if we're being completely honest, dried garlic really doesn't offer the same level of flavor as fresh garlic. Luckily, adding fresh garlic to the pan is super simple. Just chop up a clove or two, opting for larger chunks if you want to get those crispy morsels of garlic or smaller chunks if you want that flavor to be more well-distributed. You can also use a garlic press if you don't want to chop the cloves by hand.

Throw the chopped garlic into the pan along with the rice and pasta mixture, and prepare as you normally would. You'll be surprised at how big a difference this can make in the flavor of the final dish.

Any form of chicken can be a great way to upgrade a basic pot of Rice-A-Roni. But let's be honest: Cooking raw chicken from scratch isn't always the easiest or most enjoyable task, particularly on a night when you're busy and most likely to choose to cook something like Rice-A-Roni. Luckily, there are easier ways to incorporate chicken into your meal. Canned chicken may just be the simplest solution.

Canned chicken might get a bad rap, but that reputation is undeserved. Just make sure to cook the chicken, giving it enough of a sear that it starts to take on that browned color that indicates that the meat is getting nice and crispy. Then, combine with the other ingredients, and you have a more filling pot of Rice-A-Roni that you can enjoy as a main course.

Want to add some fresh vegetables to your Rice-A-Roni but don't have any on hand? You may assume that you'll have to make a trip to the grocery store to pick up something fresh, but you may have something in the freezer that will do the trick. Frozen peas are one of the best additions you could incorporate into a Rice-A-Roni recipe because they're just so, so easy. Just open the bag, pour in the desired amount of peas near the end of the cooking time, and make sure they're warmed through before serving.

Not only does this add some extra nutrition to your dish, but it also provides the Rice-A-Roni with a much-needed pop of color and a varied texture that makes things more interesting. You can also use canned peas if you don't have any frozen peas on hand.

Another one of our favorite veggie additions to Rice-A-Roni is broccoli. Broccoli, with its mildly bitter flavor and firm structure, makes for a fresh, green addition to this boxed meal. There are a few different ways to add broccoli to the mix. First of all, you could chop it up finely and saute it while you're toasting the rice and pasta mixture, browning it a bit until it softens. Or, if you want to keep things really simple, just add it to the pan when everything is simmering. When you take it off the heat, it should be well-cooked.

Fresh broccoli is going to offer the most in terms of taste and texture, but if you don't have any of the fresh variety on hand, you can also use frozen broccoli. Just make sure you thaw it out a bit before adding it to the Rice-A-Roni mixture.

Searching for the ultimate budget meal? You might just find it in Rice-A-Roni and pork chops. Besides both being relatively inexpensive compared to other foods at the grocery store, pork chops just seem to pair well with Rice-A-Roni, lending the rice and noodle mixture a rich fattiness and umami flavor that complements the seasonings, particularly if you stick with the more classic flavors.

You can always serve Rice-A-Roni on the side of your pork chops, but we think it also works well if you actually chop up the pork chops and add them to the Rice-A-Roni while it's cooking. By doing so, you allow the flavors to meld together better, leaving both the pork and the Rice-A-Roni more delicious than they could ever be on their own.

Even though Rice-A-Roni comes with a mixed seasoning packet, it can end up being pretty one note after you get it out of the pan and onto your plate. After all, you add in butter and milk for some fat, but there's not much there to balance out that fatiness in the way of acidity. That's why you may want to consider adding an acidic element to the dish before you serve it. Lemon juice could work, but we think balsamic vinegar really shines in Rice-A-Roni.

Balsamic vinegar has a deeper, more complex flavor than other common types of cooking acids, like white vinegar or lemon juice. Because of that, it adds another layer to the dish while simultaneously brightening it. You just need a small sprinkle of balsamic vinegar to give your Rice-A-Roni a whole new flavor profile.

There's nothing like opening up a bottle of wine while you make dinner. You can always save that wine for your glass, of course, but when you're cooking Rice-A-Roni, you may be able to stir it into the dish as well. White wine can serve multiple functions in a dish, including brightening it and elevating the flavor of the other ingredients. So, if you already have a bottle of wine open, why not add a splash of it to your cooking Rice-A-Roni?

Wines like pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc, and unoaked chardonnay are some of the best white wines for cooking and can all work particularly well in Rice-A-Roni. Just try to avoid more powerful, heavily oaked wines to keep the dish feeling fresh.

Rice-a-Roni admittedly does not come in any seafood flavors, but that doesn't mean you can't include seafood in your complete dish. And if you're looking for a filling, satisfying seafood pairing to enjoy with your Rice-A-Roni, you don't have to look further than salmon. You can mix salmon into a variety of Rice-A-Roni flavors (particularly the lighter ones) for delicious, decidedly un-fishy tasting results.

There are a few different ways to prepare salmon for your Rice-A-Roni. Perhaps the easiest way is to cook the salmon separately, flaking it off into pieces once it's cooked through, then adding it to the Rice-A-Roni mixture right before you're ready to serve it. Alternatively, you could use canned salmon and cook it along with the Rice-A-Roni in one pan. Either way, you're in for a simple seafood treat.

We all have our favorite go-to foods when we're hungry but don't feel like cooking. For you, Rice-A-Roni might be one of those foods because it doesn't take much time and energy to prepare, and most of the work has already been done for you. But another food that's naturally easy to prepare on a whim is eggs. Luckily, if you have some eggs just hanging out in the freezer, you can easily make them into an accompaniment for your Rice-A-Roni.

Scramble the eggs into the Rice-A-Roni mixture for a fried rice-adjacent situation, or simply fry an egg and put it on top of the finished rice and pasta. You can also soft boil an egg and allow the jammy yolk to function as a sort of sauce for the Rice-A-Roni.

Bacon bits can enhance a wide variety of dishes, and Rice-A-Roni is no exception. By just sprinkling a small handful of them into your Rice-A-Roni, you'll elevate the dish with a fatty, savory component that makes it that much more appealing. If you really want to infuse that fattiness into the Rice-A-Roni, start by cooking the bacon, breaking it down into small pieces, and stirring the rice and pasta mixture to toast it before simmering it until it's soft.

Alternatively, you could use prepared store-bought bacon bits if you don't want to mess with cooking the bacon from scratch. If you choose to add bacon bits to the mix this way, you don't even have to cook them beforehand — just keep them in the pan long enough that they warm up properly.

Many of our favorite dishes include some sort of crispy or crunchy element, but unless you severely undercook your Rice-A-Roni, you won't find it in this dish — at least, not with what's provided in the box. However, there's one ingredient that you can easily add to your Rice-A-Roni that will, in fact, deliver that crunchiness you're looking for: fried onions. Not only do these offer your dish some crunch, but they also provide your Rice-A-Roni with a savory and sweet flavor that's hard not to love.

Store-bought fried onions are a great option here, as they're already perfectly crisped, and they're easy to keep on hand. That being said, you can also fry your own onions from scratch if you don't have any store-bought in your pantry.