If you want to make perfect rice every time without a rice cooker, this post is for you. It covers which type of rice is best for your fluffiest rice, best water-to-rice ratios, recommended cook times, many tips.
Jump to Recipe
Want to make fluffy rice perfectly the first time? I want to help with that. So, check out this Table of Contents to see which sections of this post will help you the most.
Jump to:
- 🤷♀️ What are the types of rice?
- 🍚 Types of Rice That Cook Up Fluffy
- 👩🍳 How Much Water Should I Use to Cook Rice?
- 👩🍳 How Long Should I Cook Rice?
- 📝 Instructions Overview
- 🎯 Six Tips For Perfect Fluffy Rice
- 😋 Ways to Make Rice Flavorful
- 🤷♀️ How to Cook Fluffy Rice FAQ
- Perfect Fluffy Rice with Tips (White AND Brown Rice)
I make a lot of rice. It's a perfect side dish with veggies and I add it to this broccoli cranberry salad and vegetable rice soup. But it's also a fabulous canvas for infusing flavors. For example, in the summer, I toss it with green mint chutney and top it with tomatoes and nectarines. And it's essential to biryani, mujadara, and this herbed rice salad.
🤷♀️ What are the types of rice?
Below are some common types of rice.
Basmati rice (long-grain) cooks up dry with grains that are separate from each other. The flavor is somewhat nutty. This type of rice is common in Indian dishes and is used in a wide variety of dishes including curry and pilaf.
Jasmine rice (long-grain) has an aromatic flavor that is both floral and nutty. It cooks up slightly more moist than basmati rice.
Arborio (medium-grain) has a shape and starch content that combines to offer a slightly chewy and sticky texture that becomes creamy when broth and cheese are added. This type of rice is ideal for risotto.
Sticky rice also known as glutinous rice or sweet rice (long-grain) is very sticky when steamed due to it's unique starch content.
Bomba rice (short-grain) has a firm, chewy texture when cooked and is ideal for paella. It's flavor is mild, allowing it to take on the flavors of anything it's cooked with.
Sushi rice (short-grain) is tender and sticky making it ideal for sushi rolls, rice balls, and poke bowls.
Black rice also called Forbidden rice (long-, medium-, and short-grain) is sticky when steamed, regardless of its length. This type of rice has a mildly nutty, earthy flavor and has long been used in Chinese cuisine for its health-promoting properties.
Wild rice is a wild variety of semi-aquatic grass native to America and Canada, and it genetically differs from other rice varieties.
🍚 Types of Rice That Cook Up Fluffy
Standard Long-Grain Rice (White and Brown)
- Bags of rice unlabeled for the type of rice is standard long-grain rice 99% of the time.
- Many find both the flavor and aroma very bland.
Basmati (White and Brown)
- A long-grain rice, basmati grows in North India in the foothills of the Himalayas.
- It has a fragrant aroma and slightly nutty flavor when cooked and should be a light golden when purchased.
Jasmine (White and Brown)
- Another long-grain rice, jasmine rice grows in Southeast Asia.
- It has a floral plant-like aroma and subtle nutty flavor. Some say its flavor is more plant-like than other kinds of long-grain rice.
👩🍳 How Much Water Should I Use to Cook Rice?
That depends on whether the rice is long- or short-grain and whether you're cooking white or brown rice. Bottom line, follow the directions on the bag.
However, a good rule of thumb for long-grain white rice is 1 ½ as much water as white rice and 2 ½ times more water when cooking brown rice.
Water to Rice Ratio (white rice): 1 ½ cups of water per 1 cup of rice. Water to Rice Ratio (brown rice): 2 ½ cups of water per 1 cup of rice
Note: Some recipes recommend a ratio of 2 cups of water for every 1 cup of white rice. However, using too much water means you must drain the cooked rice using a fine mesh strainer before quickly returning it to the pot to steam. It also risks mushy or soggy rice.
👩🍳 How Long Should I Cook Rice?
As with the water-to-rice ratio, the cooking time depends on whether the rice is long, medium, or short-grain and whether you're cooking white or brown rice.
It also depends on whether you lightly toast the rice first in olive oil or butter (see the below Six Tips for Perfect Fluffy Rice). Toasting the rice shortens the cooking time by 5 minutes for white rice and 10 minutes for brown rice.
Bottom line, follow the directions on the package, but here's a good guideline if you choose not to toast the rice first:
Cook time for white long-grain rice: 15 minutes. Cook time for brown long-grain rice: 50 minutes.
📝 Instructions Overview
🎯 Six Tips For Perfect Fluffy Rice
Cooking rice should be easy, yet we often end up with sticky rice when we want it fluffy. Here are 6 tips for ensuring you always end up with fluffy tender rice.
- Use a heavy bottomed pot to prevent burning or scorching. It's harder to control a heated surface that is thin.
- This is important to the finished texture of the rice.
- Sauté the rice in olive oil until lightly toasted before adding any water or broth.
- This not only kicks up the flavor of the rice but also coats the grains, allowing them to slide against each other without developing starchiness.
- As a side benefit, this sauté step also shortens the cooking time (see the above section on cooking time for rice).
- Use the correct water-to-rice ratio.
- Too little liquid can result in partially cooked rice stuck to the bottom of the pot, a seemingly permanent condition. Too much liquid can result in mushy rice.
- Cover the pot while the rice is simmering, and keep it at a low simmer.
- Don't stir the rice while it cooks. Ever.
- Remove the pot from the heat and cover for 10 minutes before tossing with a fork.
- This gives the rice time to evenly distribute its moisture.
😋 Ways to Make Rice Flavorful
- Toast uncooked rice grains in olive oil or butter for 5 - 10 minutes before adding water.
- Use homemade vegetable stock or Better Than Bouillon - Roasted Vegetable Paste in place of water.
- Add salt and other spices at the beginning. This ensures an even flavoring throughout the rice.
- Make chipotle-seasoned rice by adding dried chipotle powder and a few other spices.
- Add fresh herbs to the rice while it steams at the end. Fresh thyme leaves are a particularly wonderful addition to both white and brown rice.
- Stir in some herb compound butter.
🤷♀️ How to Cook Fluffy Rice FAQ
Rinsing rice before cooking removes some of the extra starch in the grain, allowing it to cook up fluffier. This is particularly important for medium- or short-grain types of rice, as they have more starch than long-grain rice types, such as basmati and jasmine rice.
To reduce the starch in medium-grain or short-grain rice such as arborio, soak the uncooked rice grains for 30 minutes, followed by a thorough rinse.
There are several possible reasons: 1)the type of rice, 2) the amount of water, 3) cooking time 4) if you stirred the rice while it cooked, and 5) if you didn't rinse the rice before cooking.
Basmati rice, followed by jasmine rice, is the best type of fluffy rice as it contains less starch.
Use 1.5 cups of water for every 1 cup of white rice and 2.5 cups for every 1 cup of brown rice. If you live in a humid climate, you may need less water.
Check the rice for doneness after it has simmered for 10 minutes in the below directions. When the rice is done, remove the pot from the heat and cover it with a lid to steam for 10 minutes.
Perfect Fluffy Rice with Tips (White AND Brown Rice)
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup basmati long grain white rice
- 1 ½ cups water or water
- 1 teaspoon Better Than Bouillon, Roasted Vegetable Paste
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt (¼ teaspoon sea salt)
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
Instructions
- Rinse the rice under cold water, and strain using a fine mesh strainer. Dry with a towel if you plan to sauté it in olive oil before adding the cooking water.
- Warm the olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Combine rice with the oil and toss with a wooden spoon to evenly coat the grains. Toast the grains for 5 - 10 minutes until fragrant, and some grains begin to turn a light brown.
- Heat the water in the microwave oven almost to a boil, and stir it into the rice, along with the Bouillon and salt. This is a good time to add any other spices you want for flavoring the rice.
- Lower the heat, and bring to a low simmer, stir one final time, cover with a lid. and reduce the heat to maintain a low simmer. Simmer for 10 - 12 minutes without stirring.Carefully pull out a few grains on the top and check if they're done to your satisfaction. If not, cook a little longer.
- When the rice is done, stick a spoon straight down into the rice all the way to the bottom of the pan. Gently nudge a little rice away just enough to see if there's any broth still at the bottom of the pan.
- If the bottom of the pot is dry, remove the pot from the heat, add the fresh thyme, and lightly mix into the top layer of cooked rice. Cover the pot for 10 minutes, and fluff the rice with a fork. Add additional thyme if desired.
- (If some broth remains in the pot once the rice is cooked, strain it out by dumping the cooked rice into a fine mesh strainer, and quickly dump the rice back into the pot, and continue with the above step.)
Notes
For Cooking Brown Rice
Use 2 ½ cups of water and 2 teaspoons of Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Paste. Sauté in olive oil as directed above. Add the water, Bouillon and kosher salt. Simmer for 35 - 40 minutes, or until al dente. Follow the remaining directions for cooking white rice.Six Tips For Perfect Fluffy Rice
Cooking rice should be easy, and yet we often end up with sticky rice when we want it fluffy. Here are 6 tips for ensuring you always end up with tender rice that's fluffy.- Use a heavy bottomed pot to prevent burning or scorching. It's harder to control a heated surface that is thin.
- This is important to the finished texture of the rice.
- Sauté the rice in a little olive oil until lightly toasted before adding the water.
- This not only kicks up the flavor of the rice, it also coats the grains, allowing them to slide against each other without developing starchiness. So, even if you don't sauté the rice first, still add that little bit of oil.
- As a side benefit, this sauté step also shortens the cook time (see the above section on cooking time for rice).
- Use the correct water to rice ratio (see the above section on how much water to use for white rice versus brown rice).
- Too little liquid can result in partially cooked rice stuck to the bottom of the pot, a seemingly permanent condition.
- Too much liquid can give you soggy rice.
- Cover the pot while the rice is simmering and be sure to keep it at a low simmer.
- Don't be tempted to stir the rice while it cooks. Ever.
- When the rice is done, remove from the pot from the heat and keep it covered for 10 minutes before tossing it with a fork.
- This gives the rice time to evenly distribute its moisture. Otherwise the rice on top will be dry, and rice on the bottom will be wet.
Norma Chang
Great rice cooking tips. Tip #5, don't stir is very important.
The Chinese dim sum dish Lotus Leaf Wraps (Lo Mai Gai) is made with white glutinous rice also known as sticky rice so no matter how you cook it, it will be sticky.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Good to know Norma! Thanks, I'm definitely not an expert on Lo Mai Gai. Thanks for the information 🙂
Choc Chip Uru
I eat too much rice as it, this looks so delicious 😀
Yet another excuse to stock up on rice!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
The Wimpy Vegetarian
I love rice! And I probably eat more of it than I should too 🙂
Rita
Great info Susan! My hubby (an engineer) is the rice maker in our kitchen. We've pretty much switched to brown rice (Tsuru Mai brand) even for a Chinese stir-fry side. He's got the cooking method "down"! Love the chewy texture.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Me too, I really like that chewy texture. I've been doing a lot more brown rice, but I've been working on a mango-pineapple rice dish and it just doesn't photograph as well with brown rice. Ah, the sacrifices we make for art LOL.
ChefJohn
Susan, Here's a couple of notes about cooking rice that I was given back in the 50s. I guess things have changed a lot since then, but for fluffy rice, this still works for me.
I start with about 4 times as much water as the amount of rice I'm going to cook, and bring it to the boil. I then add about 1/2 Tablespoon of butter (you could use oil) and salt, The rice is then poured gently into the water, slowly enough to keep a "rolling boil". Cook the rice at a very high simmer, so that the water motion keeps the grains circulating in the pot.
Taste a few grains every 30 seconds after about 8 minutes, until it’s done to your liking/requirements. When cooked, drain immediately under Cold running water, then, while still in the strainer, run hot water over it to heat it again. Repeat this 2 more times, then place in a warmed bowl. Fluff with a fork before serving.
I know this has little to do with the ‘absorption method’ you mention above, but it has always worked for me.
My English Grandfather, who was a French-trained Chef/Pastrycook called it “Rice of the seven waters”, never used the absorption method, saying that there was too much variation in rice grain size, starch content and change due to storage time before sale for the absorption method to be dependable.
As I said before, a lot has changed in the last hundred years or so, but this method has always worked for me.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
This is fascinating! I've not seen this method but I really want to try it. Between the large amount of water giving the grains plenty of room, the butter/oil that's coating the grains a little, that's preventing excess starch, I'm thinking. And the 4 rinses (2 with cold water, 2 with hot water) is removing a lot of what does build up. All this supports a fluffy outcome. What interests me is that this is a good solution for the variation we naturally get in our rice. I'm going to try this method next! Thanks so much for sharing.
mjskit
I'm with you - I don't need another appliance! 🙂 I'm pretty inconsistent with my rice so this post has been very helpful. I will be trying some of your tips. Thanks!!!
The Wimpy Vegetarian
I hope they work for you too, MJ! And hope you're enjoying your summer 🙂
cheri
Great tips Susan, as always great post!
Oui, Chef
Great tips, Susan, I'll use them all the next time I make a batch of rice.
Ali
I LOVE these tips. My means didn't too often consist of rice growing up, and when they did, it was usually minute rice or boxed Rice-a-roni. So when I got married, I added a rice cooker to our gift registry. I don't know if it's me or the rice cooker, but it almost always ends up pretty mushy... Needless to say, I will be using these 6 tips next time I make rice! Thank you!
Ali
Oh goodness. I didn't proofread. Means=meals. 😉
Rachel
If you are using a rice cooker then use the same amount of water as you are using rice and add some olive oil and salt. it shouldn't come out mushy
Ali
My rice cooker's instructions said to use a 2:1 ratio of water to rice. Or maybe I read it on a bag of rice... Well, I don't remember where it was, but I know I read to use a 2:1 ratio, and I eventually realized that was wrong. I've stopped doing that though, and my rice is much better! 🙂
michelfrost
Amazing Tips! I had tried this tips to make perfect rice & its result was awesome. I found perfect fluffy rice. Thank you for sharing it & keep sharing such type of tips with us..
Margaret @findbestreview
I’ve never been able to cook rice well I always ruin it. But after doing it the way you said it turned out amazingly!! Thank you for sharing
The Wimpy Vegetarian
I'm so happy it worked so well for you!!!! Thanks so much for letting me know. I know I'm responding way late of you posting this, but for some reason, just now seeing it!