Who doesn't love rice? It's so flexible and easy going, it's pretty much willing to hang out with any kind of food you throw at it!
I remember when I finally cracked the rice code. For some reason I thought I needed a rice cooker to make perfect rice, but that is not true at all. Sure, a rice cooker can be handy, but unless you're cooking rice every day, you totally do not need it. If you have a pot and a stove, you're good to go!
Here's what you do:
- Place water (1 and 1/2 cups for white rice, 2 cups for brown) in a medium pot with about ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil.
- Add 1 cup of rice, return to a boil, and stir so the rice doesn't stick to the bottom.
- Once the rice is boiling, give it one last good stir then reduce the heat to low and cover the pot. Let cook covered (no stirring!), ~20-25 minutes for white rice and ~45 minutes for brown rice.
- To see if the rice is done, just take a quick peak (glass lids are helpful!) and you should see little holes throughout the surface. It's best to keep the lid on, but don't be afraid to open it quickly for a taste to make sure the rice is cooked through.
- Remove from heat, leave covered and let sit for 10 minutes – this is an important step and helps the moisture spread evenly throughout the rice.
- Uncover, fluff with a fork and eat!
- Cooking times and water amounts may need to be adjusted depending on your stove and the type of rice you use. Feel free to experiment!
For basic rice, calrose rice is good if you want nice sticky rice and jasmine rice is good if you want, you guessed it, un-sticky rice.
Rice is great as a simple side dish, as a base to top with aweseome sauces and meats, or mixed right into the main dish. Here are 20 recipes to help you do all those things!
Beyond Basic Rice
Easy enough for a weeknight with the roomie but impressive and tasty for a special night, too!
Make Citrus Rice from Home Cooking Memories
As delicious as something you'd eat in a restaurant, but this version is even healthier, and you can flavor it to your taste.
Make Mexican Rice from Dinner, Dishes & Desserts
The best food served at Chipotle? The rice. Now you can make it yourself, no waiting in line required!
Make Cilantro Lime Rice from This Week for Dinner
Recipes to Top Your Rice
This simple Korean dish is beyond delicious, and rice never looked so damn beautiful.
Make Dolsot Bibimbap from Savory Simple
If you need some good comfort food (and who doesn't?), these meatballs are for you.
Make Turkey Meatballs with Red Pepper Sauce from This Mama Loves
Crockpots aren't just for your mom's potluck anymore; in fact, it's getting kind of cool to own one. Easy recipes and lots of leftovers is always in style, especially when there's Hawaiian BBQ sauce involved.
Make Hawaiian BBQ Chicken Over Rice from Like Mother Like Daughter
Impress your friends with this takeout fake out!
Make Spicy Orange Chicken from Flavor Mosaic
This stir-fry doubles as a love potion — whoever eats it will love it so much they'll want to marry you, so tread lightly.
Make Chicken Stir Fry with Thai Peanut Sauce from The Law Student's Wife
Recipes with the Rice Mixed In!
Whenever I have leftover rice just hanging around with nothing to do, I make this simple but completely awesome soup.
Make Chicken Soup with Rice from This Week for Dinner
This is another recipe that you can't stop stuffing your face with. No joke. Stuffing. Your. Face.
Make Stuffed Peppers from This Week for Dinner
Winter weather got you down? This easy and tasty dish will warm you up better than a hot date.
Make Cranberry Ropa Vieja from Always Order Dessert
Rice is even good for breakfast. Trust me and try this.
Make Maple Brown Rice Breakfast Bowl from Wonky Wonderful
It may be time to get down and dirty with your rice. Just sayin'.
Make Acorn Squash Stuffed with Dirty Rice from This American Bite
So, if you hadn't heard, ground beef and rice have fallen in love. And they met in this soup, which will soon be your favorite winter meal.
Make Stuffed Pepper Soup from Diethood
This scrumptious fried rice dish is a full dinner on its own, and is surprisingly easy to prep, giving you more time to do more important things than cooking, like seeing how many episodes of Scandal you can watch in one night.
Make Thai Basil Fried Rice from Wine and Glue
With these tasty, customizable Cuban pork bowls, you can have it your way every time.
Make Cuban Pork Bowls from I Heart Eating
This Mexican fried rice is a great way to use up random leftovers without your dinner tasting like random leftovers.
Make Mexican Fried Rice from Recipe Renovator
This recipe is about to blow your mind: the rice isn't stuffed in the food, the food is stuffed in the rice. Crazytown. Also, Delicioustown.
Make Beef Biryani Stuffed in Basmati Rice from An Edible Mosaic
Forget Chinese takeout. This is about 100 times less greasy and more flavorful.
Make Chinese Shrimp Fried Rice from Jeanette's Healthy Living
Want a burrito but would rather leave some of the carbs at the door? Ditch the tortilla and fill up on this tasty, healthy burrito bowl. Plus, beer-drenched meat.
Make Beer Braised Carnitas Bowl from Taste, Love & Nourish
Jane Maynard is a food blogger at This Week for Dinner and Babble, a writer and designer, and a lover of all things chocolate.
