I’m so grateful to you for posting this. I’ve had the same problem with the texture of the brown rice I’ve cooked at home.

And there’s nothing worse that pasty brown rice. I was in a Thai restaurant the other day. I chose the brown rice option and was served a pasty mess that was sticking together in clumps. I requested another bowl, but it was from the same batch and just the same. (Perhaps I should share the “secret” with them too.)

OHHhhhh.. I’ve been craving brown rice lately!! But like you it never comes out right… I’m always so impatient for it to get finished so I can dig in!! Good info to have, “patience does a perfect cup of brown rice make” D

I usually cook mine in the pressure cooker and it come out delicious, but I have to make a big batch. Your method should be good for smaller amounts of rice. Thank you.

One question. What about the water soluble vitamins that you wash down the drain with this method? Or have I been too indoctrinated by salesmen of the waterless cooking pots?

I, too, have problems cooking brown rice. Thanks for the tips and pointers! Between your recipe and the Saveur article, I should be able to figure it out!

What? You mean brown rice doesn’t have to be gross and crunchy? I should really give it another try!

I loved opening this email–I just served brown rice to my family the other night and it was terrible! I am so glad to get this tip, because I know it’s so good for us!

Interesting- and at high altitude, I imagine your method works better than the standard formula I’ve used. I twittered this post- great for gluten-free folks.

Thanks for this. We have been trying to eat more brown rice and whole grains and I have been struggling with making them taste good.

It is nice to see a post from you. =]

Thank you! These tips are awesome. (And thanks Karina, for tweeting this so I could find it….)

I’ve noticed that my brown rice comes out fine in the rice steamer if I add twice the amount of water I’m supposed to. If I use Brown Basmati and use two cups of water per half a cup of rice, it’s usually pretty good. Occasionally it comes out a little mushy though, but I prefer that to “gross and crunchy”.

ALSO, you can just skip the nonsense altogether and buy the ready-cooked brown rice you get in the freezer section of Trader Joe’s or, if you don’t live near one, order some steamed rice from a chinese restaurant that has brown rice as an option.

I bake my brown rice in the oven and it comes out perfectly every time with no fuss. Alton Brown’s recipe is on Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/baked-brown-rice-recipe/index.html

Love your blog!

Thank you for this recipe. I usually cook white rice and it comes out delicious every time. However, for health reasons I would like to begin feeding my family brown rice. So many more nutrients and benefits to it. Thing is, I use a rice cooker. Would this same method apply to a rice cooker?

I mix brown rice with white rice in my rice cooker. 3 cups white 1 cup brown. Add a cup more of water than when using all white rice.

Interesting! I saw that same article in Saveur, and I’ve been (mostly) happy with my rice cooker, but this seems even better! Will definitely have to try! Thanks for sharing.

This is really one great post, which i could use. 12 cups! .. 4 cups sounds just right.. & i should try that steaming part next time.

I will have to give this a shot because my normal 2:1 liquid to rice ends up burnt from time to time. Plus I turn into a pot looker because of a paranoid of burning so I am constantly lifting the lid every 5 minutes to stir and make sure water level is good.

Thanks for this article, again. And I agree with you- the first time I tried this, I already started my stir fry and didn’t want to wait the time it would take for 12c of water to boil. So I just filled my pot, which was definitely < 12c, and followed the rest of the directions. It was great, esp the next day – not crunchy or clumpy on the 2nd day!

I’m so glad you posted this! This REALLY IS the best way to cook brown rice. I cut the page of out of Saveur months ago, and have been passing it on to people ever since. It really changes people’s opinions about brown rice–esp. those who thought they didn’t like it. Each piece of rice is fluffy, and there’s no more mush.

One of the commentors mentioned brown rice doesn’t work in their rice cooker. My sister had the same problem and has since given away her cooker and just makes it the Saveur way instead. Nothing sticks and cleanup is quick!

This makes sense why my brow rice turned out best in soups – there is more liquid for it to absorb. Thank you so much for posting this. It’s MOST helpful.

I also cook my rice in the pressure cooker and have pretty much perfected it. It only takes 22 minutes at pressure.

I just read an article about the loss of B vitamins when boiling rice and throwing away the liquid so I am not likely to use the method you describe.

Honestly, though, if it helps people eat more brown rice, I am all for it. And once you’ve conquered and perfected brown, you’ve got to give the various red and black rices a try. There are hundreds of types of whole grain rice in the world. And most of them are quite tasty. Check out my friends at Lotus Foods for some very special types of rice.

Oh man, this is timely! I just made mushy brown rice last night. Ick. But I have problems even with the white stuff.

I’m another fan of Saveur’s method–it really is foolproof. And (for me, at least) another bonus is that you can make it ahead of time and it’ll hold, since it’s got that little bit of hot water underneath the colander. I cook it during my toddler’s afternoon nap (when he takes one) and let it sit until dinnertime.

I happened to look on your blog today while I,m cooking brown rice. We have the same problem because brown cooks different than white. Thanks for the advice. Going to try your coconut lime cake for the family reunion this Saturday.

Best way I have found to cook brown rice is in the rice steamer. Using 2 cups water/broth to 1 cup rice turns out great! This is the only way my family will tolerate brown rice.

When cooking brown rice, it’s a good idea to add some chicken stock or chicken bouillon to the water along with some dried chives. The taste is so much better than just plain rice, no matter what you plan to serve with your rice.

For other recipe ideas and reviews of great places to eat, go to:
http://wheretogoandwhattodo.blogspot.com

I wonder if it changes the nutritional content of the rice at all? I eat it mainly for the nutrition reasons? Anyone know?

My two cents, a bit late:
Another no-fail way to cook brown rice perfectly is to soak it in water w/ lemon juice or whey overnight. It neutralizes the phytates, making it more digestable, and it cooks up in a flash. Mmmm…delish and filling. The cookbook “Nourishing Traditions” has all the details. I swear by it!

btw, I always love checking in at PMS…mouth watering and a feast for the eyes, too. =)

I just made brown rice last night! I wish I had read this post before I did it, it came out slightly mushy

Thanks for the brown rice cooking tip.

Hi,

Thank you for this post and for a great food blog! This is my first time visiting and I’ll be back often. As a nutritionist, I always recommend brown vs. white rice. But it’s not easy to “get it right.” I can’t wait to try this cooking method.

P.S.> As someone else mentioned, I often add chicken broth to my rice for a great flavor, depending on what I am serving with the rice. (Half broth, half water).

Thanks again,
Vonalda-naturalhealthywoman

I cook my short grain brown rice in the rice cooker using a 1 cup rice/2 cups water ratio but never was too happy with the result. Thanks for posting this tip!

Yes the 12 cups of water seem over the top for me also.

Gabi

I finally perfected brown rice in my rice cooker… adding extra water is the trick! (as noted in a lot of the comments here)
It seems to work better in bigger batches, so I freeze the left-overs.
2 c. brown rice, 4 1/2 c. water, 1 veggie boullion cube… perfect every time.

HI i tried doing this and all the water pratically absorbs by the 30 mins is that supposed to happen?? and also the bottom is all burnt rice i dont know what im doing wrong any suggestions

hi yeah i did i used 4 cups of water because i used only 1 cup of water do u think it would matter the type of pot i used?

This really works, just finshed eating it now. I used 2 cups of water from the kettle with 1 cup of brown rice. I didn’t use a sieve at any point and I added a bit of butter.

Thanks so much I can now finally cook brown rice!!!

Fantastic. I too have never been that happy with brown rice at home. Gonna try this tonight. Lovely photos BTW.

what an awesome recipe/technique! i tried it with my short grain brown rice today and it produced the best brown rice i’ve ever had, hands down! thanks for saving me from mushy or hard brown rice for the rest of my life

thank you thank you thank you ! ! ! the only thing i did differently was I started out with cold water and kept it covered for the 1st ten minutes (only because I forgot what I read the first time around). i used your 4 C water to 1 C brown rice method and this is actually the first time we’ve ever enjoyed brown rice! ever! thank you again! i don’t normally comment online, but, i just had to share. it was the perfectly-textured flakey brown rice I’ve ever eaten! I used a small 1 1/2 qt. pot that was just barely big enough.

The amount of water you need to use depends on the “age” of the rice. If it is freshly harvested and packed, it is likely to have a higher inherent water content. Older rice that has been stored for a few months before packing needs a tad more water.

We, in India, never throw away the water in which the rice is cooked. You lose all the water soluble nutrients that way. You have to adjust the amount, so it just about gets absorbed.

This may seem like a silly question, but when you return the rice to the pot, do you keep it in the strainer sitting on top of the pot? Or dump the rice back in? Thank you!

Lovely recipe. A perfect al dente rice- not mushy or crunchy, but ‘just right.’

I wanted to mention that I too use only 4 cups of water for this recipe, but instead of tossing it down the drain, I capture it in a bowl and then drink it like a tea. There are tone of nutrients form the rice that are in the liquid, and it’s actually quite delicious. I add a few pieces of kombu and bull whip (seaweeds), which add to the flavor and the nutrition. It’s delightful.

In some japanese soba places, they give you the broth the soba was cooked in after you have eaten your (cold) noodles. You usually add some of the dipping sauce and some scallions. These would both make a nice addition to your rice-broth.

Enjoy!
D

I know this is way late but i finally tried to make the rice again..ive been just taking the easy way out and getting brown rice and the chinese restaurant…i took your advice and used 6 cups of water and it worked…thank you so much i will never have to get take out rice again…this actually tastes a lot better

Thankyou. I much prefer brown rice and would love the family to eat it more but it’s not nice when you have to eat it crunchy or worse soggy! LOL.
I’ll have to give this method a try and see if we can overcome the great brown rice debate in my household!

PERFECT! Just used this recipe and I will never try any other method for brown rice again. Thank you, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for

I have a method provided by a 5-star chef.

1. Finely chop 1 onion
2. Finely chop 4 to 6 cloves of garlic
3. Add 3 tablespoons to bottom of fry pan
4. Add onion and garlic for 3 to 6 minutes until tender lightly cooked
5. Add 1 cup of brown rice
6. Fry the brown rice until all the oil is absorbed
7. Add 1 cup of white wine until it is absorbed
8. Add 6 to 8 cups of chicken broth just one cup at a time, allowing it to absorb before adding another cup.
9. Rice will be done perfectly
10. Add butter, salt, pepper and grated parmesan if you want to make it creamy.

Good article, but I really wish you were more specific on the instructions.. you said 30 minutes for 1 cup of rice, but this quantity changes depending on how much rice, half a cup doesn’t stay 30 minutes, that will burn it (and i’m talking from experience here).

Can you please add these details?

[...] rice and found that our own Nicole, of Pinch My Salt fame, had a blog entry with directions for perfectly cooked brown rice. I knew I needed look no further. If Nicole said it worked, that was good enough for me. I followed [...]

Great tip, thanks for sharing. I made this last night, and am having it again for lunch as we speak. Not only was it fluffy and flavorful for dinner, but it didn’t dry out in the fridge overnight and is just as good today.

I used the 4c water/1c rice ration and also added a pinch of salt to my water.

Wow, it works…thank you sooo much! Brown rice always seems to be such an impossible cook. I’ve tried so many methods (even the one where you measure the water according to the first line of your index finger) but it either ends up to mushy or crunchy, but this is the only method that works every time. I was always afraid to cook anything that revolved around rice when having company over..but now I can! Thanks for sharing!

Shame on you, David! How can you ask us to toss out the water that contains so many nutrients?

I think it’s time to go back to the drawing board to correct the recipe.

[...] I picked up three bags — brown, red and forbidden (black). I cooked them all together using Nicole’s foolproof method. It is, of course, impossible to cook a few ounces of rice, and I didn’t even try. Instead, I [...]

I don’t know why I was surprised after reading all the glowing reviews but I still was astounded. I have never once made even a vaguely satisfactory pot of brown rice but this method yielded perfection! I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Great instructions! I tried it tonight and made the best brown rice I’ve ever made!

I live at about 9000 ft above sea level and this method is the best I’ve come across, although i did need to boil the rice for an hour instead of 30 minutes, and then let it steam for 20 minutes or so for it to be perfect, but thanks for the tip!

HOORAY! I quickly searched for a non goopy/sticky/mushy method of making brown rice last night and this was quite the winner! I was very pleased it came out perfect on the first attempt, however I am going to try and alter the amount of water so that I don’t have to dump any out. I just don’t want to waste the nutrient rich fluid, and the whole point of eating brown rice vs. white is for the extra nutrition! Thanks again for this! I just love making black beans and rice, and now that I can make the rice perfectly, the dish won’t be so goopy!

These directions were perfect. I wanted to use 3/4 cup of brown rice for a casserole and I wanted to pre-cook the rice, because it takes forever to get cooked in the oven. I used 2 cups of water and it came out perfectly. I brought water to boil, put in the rice, cooked on Medium for 30 minutes, drained the rice in a strainer, added the rice to my casserole and popped it in the oven. Thanks so much for a great recipe.

So pleased with the way it cooked. I just followed instructions exactly as directed. AWESOME. THUMBS UP!

Hi, thank you for the recipe and i followed the instructions exactly like you wrote here. It turn out perfectly! Thanks again and I put your link in my blog..

Thank you so much for these instructions! I was skeptical but, like everyone else experienced, the rice turned out perfectly! Best brown rice I’ve ever made.

Nicole, Great Recipe….cooked it twice so far and 1 to 4 cups works great for me..
Awesome….Thanks so much,

This was my first attempt at cooking brown rice. You’re right, it turned out perfect! Thanks.

I bought a rice cooker with a brown rice setting and I feel like a fool for not buying one a decade ago. There is no secret to brown rice, just push the button and enjoy it – no need to be a martyr.

I was about to give up on cooking brown rice altogether until I came upon your site. So I decided to give it one more shot and my goodness it was PERFECT!!!! Thank you so much for this tip!!! Now I don’t ever have to give up on cooking brown rice! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Last year I bought a rice cooker at Costco with a setting for brown rice. But it tends to burn the rice, even when I add extra water.

Got any suggestions, Morgan?

Wow! I was a total skeptic when I read this technique, but I tried it and the brown rice is perfect. Nutty and fluffy. Thank you for posting.

WoW! This is the first time my brown rice came out perfect. My family finally like brown rice. Thank you so much.

Great technique! I shared it on wikiHow, crediting your blog and Saveur as a source:

http://www.wikihow.com/Cook-Brown-Rice

Thanks so much for sharing this! It is absolutely the best way to cook brown rice. I’ve passed it along to several family members – even those who haven’t liked brown rice in the past – and they all love it.

okay so tonight I tried brown rice again, and again was unhappy so that’s when I found this tip that makes sense and I will try for sure next time. BUT… I actually want to make like a Mexican type rice so my family will eat it with me so what kind of suggestions might you have there?

Hello there and thankyou for showing me the right way of cooking brown rice!! I couldn’t get the grains to seperate but atleast it was not crunchy and I can now really enjoy my brown basmati rice.
I actually added it to some stir fry vegetables and it was delicious!

[...] Problemet har imidlertid vært at brun ris (naturris) er litt vrient å koke. Den må koke lengre enn hvit ris, men selv om jeg har holdt på og kokt og kokt så ble den liksom ikke særlig bra likevel. Inntil nå, for nå har jeg funnet en en idiotsikker måte å koke perfekt brun ris: [...]

[...] (either follow your rice cooker’s instructions, or follow Nicole’s super-cool instructions for perfect brown rice) and cooled to room [...]

Help please.
#1 How can I cook the perfect brown rice in a small 3 cup rice cooker? It’s either too mushy or hard partially uncooked.

#2 Also one other problem, I am used to cooking awesome perfect every time white rice in Latin style aluminum pots. But I just bought a new glass stove top, and the warranty and service reps told me I can only use stainless steel flat bottom pots and pans. No copper bottoms, iron skillets, or aluminum anything. Is there anything out there that has a stainless steel flat bottom, but has an inside like an aluminum pot where I can cook rice stove top once again? Thanks Feed Me

[...] one of my not-so-successful attempts, I came across a recipe for Perfect Brown Rice on Pinch My Salt, which adopted an unusual cooking technique from Saveur magazine. Basically, the trick is this:  [...]

Thank you so much for this post! I prepared this last night and I felt like a miracle happened in my kitchen. Holy-Bejesus…I finally did it right! You have shown me the light! Thank you!

This process didn’t work for me. Still sticky and clumpy. I’m very disappointed because I really want to eat healthy but don’t want the clumpy rice.

[...] By the way, have you seen this amazing technique for making brown rice?? No more gooey mess. Pinch My Salt is [...]