Here's The Right Way To Cook Rice On The Stove

Rice is the world's preferred staple crop, with more than half of humanity relying on the crop for a significant part of their diet. With the grain showing up in traditional foods in pretty much every corner of the globe, there are innumerable ways to turn it into something delicious. In areas where people eat almost every meal with rice, rice cookers are the preferred tool. The Instant Pot can also make excellent rice, and you can even make serviceable rice in the microwave if you don't have any other options. 

You can also cook perfect rice on the stove in a regular pot, but this route is not for the faint of heart. The simple directions on the back of the bag might make you think that the stovetop method is easy, but it requires precise control of many variables, including heat, moisture, and evaporation. Don't let that scare you off: Once you get your procedure down, you can easily make your rice taste just as good as it would from any restaurant or fancy gadget.

For this tutorial, we will be focusing on the absorption method, where you try to precisely measure enough rice and water to give you perfectly cooked grains with no excess liquid. This is the most popular way to cook it, and it's the best way to achieve the fluffy, aromatic white rice that machines are so good at making.

You don't technically need to rinse rice to cook it, but rinsing will significantly improve the texture and flavor of the finished product. Raw rice is covered in a fine layer of powdered starch that will turn into a gelatinous goo when exposed to heat and moisture. This extra starch will prevent you from achieving perfectly fluffy and separated long grain rice. Even for short grain dishes where you want the rice to stick together, excess surface starch can turn it into a pasty mess. Rinsing also removes any other dust and debris that may or may not be clinging to your rice, making it taste cleaner and fresher.

To rinse rice, simply pour water over it, swish it around, drain, and repeat until the rinse water comes out relatively clear. The exact number of rinses depends on how starchy your rice is and your level of patience. You can use a strainer to drain, but if you're feeling lazy you can simply pour the water out of your rinsing vessel — the rice won't go down the sink with the water, we promise. If you really don't want to make any extra dishes dirty, you can even rinse the rice directly in the pot you'll use to cook it.

Different starch foods respond differently to boiling water. If you're cooking pasta, the conventional wisdom is that you need the water to be at a rolling boil before adding the noodles to help them cook evenly and prevent sticking (although some modern cooks disagree with this advice). Conversely, throwing potatoes into water that's already boiling will leave you with mushy exteriors and raw insides (via Food52).

Like potatoes, rice will cook more evenly if you start it in cold water and then bring it to a boil. Beginning with cold water lets the rice hydrate gradually, resulting in a more even cook. Adding rice to boiling water risks breaking down the outside of each grain while leaving the interior crunchy. This is especially true for white rice that lacks a protective husk. Note that this advice applies only to the standard absorption method that we've been discussing in this article. If you're cooking rice via stovetop boiling where you use a big pot of water and drain the excess moisture with a strainer (as you would cook pasta), you want the water to be at a full boil before adding the rice.

We touched on this before when we were discussing ratios, but when you're choosing a rice pot you want something with a tight-fitting lid. You're trying to trap as much steam as possible because the steam is what cooks the rice all the way through. A loose lid may let too much moisture escape, leaving you with crunchy, underdone grains. If your rice pot has a leaky lid, you can cover the pot with aluminum foil or weigh the lid down with something heavy to get a better seal (via Serious Eats).

The lid isn't the only pot factor that will affect your rice success. You also want to choose something that's appropriately sized for the amount of rice you want to cook. For most people, a two-quart pot is the sweet spot. That will let you cook one to two cups of rice without risking a boilover or leaving so much space in the pot that the steam can't build up enough to soften the rice (via Simply Recipes).

Cooking rice with proper technique is an exercise in patience and trust. Once the water has come up to a boil and you put the lid on the pot, you really shouldn't take the lid off until the rice has finished cooking. As you can probably guess, lifting the lid to take a peek lets out a bunch of steam and can make your rice cook unevenly. It might be tough to resist taking a look at your rice while it's cooking, but you need to be able to trust that your time and temperature settings are doing what they're supposed to. Since everybody's stove is different, you'll probably have to employ some trial and error to dial in your heat level and the precise timing, but once you've figured it out there's no good reason to take the lid off during cooking. Choosing a pot with a see-through glass lid can take some of the guesswork out of the process as well.

Dickson Data tested what happens when you remove the lid while cooking rice, and they found that even a small amount of time with the lid off negatively impacted their rice. They removed the lid three times for 10 seconds each, for a total of 30 seconds with the top off. Compared to a control batch that had been covered the whole time, the lid-off rice was uneven, with a dry top and a wet bottom.

While you can technically serve rice right after you take it off the heat, it will never taste as good fresh off the burner as it will after a few minutes of covered resting. The reason for this is basically the same as why you need to rest large cuts of meat after cooking them: redistribution of moisture (via Martha Stewart). 

When you cook a cut of meat, the juices inside become unevenly distributed. Likewise, when you cook rice, the top will naturally be drier than the bottom. Also, because the top of the rice is farther from the heat source than the bottom, it will likely be less cooked. Letting your rice hang out with the lid on for around 10 minutes will allow both the steam and the temperature to redistribute, giving you rice that's evenly cooked and moist from top to bottom.

Plain white rice is a wonderful accompaniment to dishes from all around the world, from curry to gumbo to teriyaki. Sometimes, though, you want rice to be more than just a starchy vehicle for a flavorful sauce. Options for flavoring rice range from subtle adjustments that enhance the taste of plain grains to elaborate preparations that turn rice into the centerpiece of a meal. Livestrong suggests toasting rice in a little oil or butter before cooking. You can add herbs, spices, and other seasonings during the cooking process to liven things up, or experiment with replacing water with more flavorful liquids like broth or coconut milk.

You can see how to apply these techniques in the real world by looking at specific recipes. Our own take on paella uses a flavorful base of onions and paprika cooked in oil that you toast the rice in before cooking with chicken stock, peas, and shrimp. Our lamb pilau features rice cooked in a fragrant broth made by cooking lamb with spices. Toasting rice in oil is also a necessary step in the process of making risotto.