Rice is the ideal side dish – you can keep it plain or dress it up and it complements pretty much anything you serve it with. But this baked rice, well this is rice that is more than a side dish… it steals the show every time. It’s cooked in the oven with three simple ingredients (and yes, one of those is an entire stick of butter) until it’s fluffy and incredibly flavorful.

Cooking rice on the stovetop can be a little stressful since you’re never entirely sure when all the liquid has cooked out, but this method is a much more forgiving even if the cooking time is a bit longer. All you have to do is stir together three ingredients – the rice, a can of french onion soup and a can of beef broth – and top it with a sliced stick of butter.

You cover the dish with foil, pop it in a hot oven, and in an hour you have some of the most delicious rice you can imagine.

The French onion soup brings in a balance of sweet and savory flavor and the butter brings in, well, butteriness. And as we all know, butter makes everything better. It takes a bit of time to make, but that doesn’t mean it takes you any effort at all and for something this tasty, the oven time is well worth it.