Gluten-Free Cheesy Rice Filled Bacon Cups

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A few nights ago I attended a dinner party that I was super excited to attend. I had a feeling from the moment I walked up the porch steps and saw all of the signs that the night was going to be fun. And I’m happy to say that it was!

It made me happy to team up Minute® Rice, a brand that I use often.  The theme of the party was Minute Meals, or in other words, meals made with Minute® Rice.

So of course, all of the dishes served were made with rice.

Minute® White Rice takes only five minutes to make.

Minute 100% Whole Grain Brown Rice takes 10 minutes to make, which is 1/4 of the time it takes regular long brown rice to coo.

Minute® Multi-Grain Medley, the newest product from Minute Rice, comes in pre-portioned bags. It’s a blend of four gluten-free, 100% whole grains (long grain brown rice, Thai red rice, wild rice and quinoa) and cooks in 10 minutes.

We love Minute® Rice in our house. We almost always have it on hand and as I mentioned earlier, eat it often. Despite years of cooking (and eating) it, the dishes I tried at the dinner party really surprised me.

Arancini are rice balls. Give me a plate of these and some marinara sauce and you won’t see me for a while. So good!

Blueberry Basil Rice Salad. This one was a cold dish. I would never have thought to pair blueberries with rice. But it worked! The dish is really unique and very flavorful.

The Brown Rice, Kale, Roasted Tomato And Feta Salad was interesting. I thought it had a real Mediterranean feel to it. Hubby would love it!

Summer Vegetable And Rotisserie Chicken Rice Bake was delicious. The summer veggies gave the dish a lot of color and flavor.

I’d never had Horchata before. It was neat! It smelled like rice pudding, and I felt sort of like I was drinking liquid rice pudding. I had mine over ice, but think it might be tasty warm as well.

Dinner was very enjoyable. Food and conversation was terrific. I got to meet a  couple of ladies I’ve known online for years, as well as meet some new people. Once we were all finished with our meal we were split into two teams. We were challenged to create our own version of fried rice. This would not be difficult, as we were all feeling inspired from all of the tasty and creative dishes we’d sampled.

The team I was on made Aloha Rice.

This Polynesian inspired dish featured Minute® Rice, shrimp, pineapple, honey, peppers, and green onions.

The opposing team made Fruit Rice Medley. I don’t know all of the ingredients they used but I do recall it included Minute® Rice, strawberries, pineapple, and nuts.

The vote was close. In the end the Fruit Rice Medley edged out our Aloha Rice by a hair. But really, we were all winners. We all had a fun evening. And we realized that it’s fun to expand your cooking creativity. And we were also reminded that with Minute® Rice in your pantry you’ll always have a solution for all sorts of meals. Minute® Rice by itself is great, but you can also add it to salad, include it in a dessert, and pair it with leftovers to make a whole new meal.

Once home I found myself thinking of all sorts of new ideas using Minute Rice. I decided to try my hand at coming up with an appetizer. I decided to use two other favorite items in our house, bacon and cheese. I combined them all to make Cheesy Rice Filled Bacon Cups. We were very pleased. It’s perfect for tv snacking, or as an appetizer. And it’s gluten-free! Here’s how I made them.

Gluten-Free Cheesy Rice Filled Bacon Cups

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups Minute Rice (cooked)
• 12 slices uncooked bacon (not thick-cut)
• 4-6 oz block/bar sharp cheddar cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

You need a mini-muffin pan to make this recipe. I used two of them, each one having 12 wells.

Preheat the oven to 400 f.

Cut each slice of bacon in half, so they’re still the same height but only half as long.

Line each well of the muffin pan with bacon. You want to be sure to circle the entire outside while also making sure the bottom edge covers the bottom of the well.

Spoon rice into each bacon cup.

Slice the cheese into long, thinnish chunks, then stand one in the middle of each cup of rice.

Bake for 20 minutes

Serve immediately.

Be sure to visit the Minute® Rice website, where you’ll find over 400 recipes. You can also sign up for the The Riceipe Club® mailing list if you’d like to receive recipe ideas, newsletters and special offers from Minute Rice by email.

What’s your favorite way to use rice?

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Minute® Rice.