Example sentences
mǐ米fàn饭hǎo好le了。
The rice is ready.
nǐ你yào要mǐ米fàn饭ma吗？
Do you want rice?
About this word
米 is raw rice grain, 饭 is cooked food or a meal, so 米饭 is literally "rice food": the rice you eat alongside a meal, as opposed to the grain in the bag. 饭 is the general word in 早饭, 午饭 and 晚饭, and what it names does not have to be rice. That is why 吃饭 means "to eat a meal" in general, and 你吃饭了吗 asks whether you have eaten, not whether you had rice. When you need to name the dish and rule out noodles, you say 米饭. 米饭 and 面条 are the two standard answers to 你吃什么.
The story behind the character
米
A few grains of rice, the cross in the middle being the crease on each grain. Xu Shen wrote 米, 粟实也: "the seed of the grain." It's barely changed in a few thousand years; it's still just grains of rice.
饭
饭 is 饣 (food) with 反 on the right, which is there for the sound. Xu Shen defined it as 饭, 食也, to eat, and the noun meaning came along with it. The traditional 飯 has the full 食 on the left. So 米饭 is cooked rice, 饭馆 is an eating house, and both of them are built on that old word for food.