Perfect Brown Rice

Brown Rice. You hear the benefits of brown rice all the time – whole grain, fiber, vitamins and minerals. You get it. But what you don’t get? Instructions on how to make it. Keeping it real here on the blog and teaching you all the basics on how to cook. Starting with brown rice.

When I used to counsel patients one on one it was their number one complaint – it never turns out – as to why they didn’t incorporate brown rice into their diets. Every time – whether it simply took too long to cook or it ended up being too mushy, they were frustrated and would go back to their simple white rice, what they knew how to cook perfectly. Now hear me out, I am a dietitian that encourages eating whole grains the majority of the time – there are many studies to show the proven benefits of incorporating whole grains into our diet. And if white rice is your jam, find other whole grains that you’re willing to incorporate and continue eating your white rice. BUT if you haven’t tried making brown rice how I’m about to tell you to make it, I challenge you to at least give it a try.

No rice cooker here. Just a simple pot of water. It’s that simple. Really. I found that having to figure out the right ratio of water to the brown rice was always my problem (and that’s even more so with a rice cooker) so one day I put a pot of water on the stove and experimented. I’m proud to say my experiment worked out and I’ve never looked back.

Once the pot is at a rolling boil you then add your rice. I usually make a cup of rice for the week at a time but I’ve made up to 2 cups at a time. The idea is to have the rice submerged in the boiling water. It will cook like this for 30 minutes. So yes, there’s a little timing to watch but I also don’t have to worry about the water completely evaporating if I’ve added enough water – it’s similar to how you cook spaghetti.

The rice will cook for 30 minutes. Then you drain the rice of all that excess water. I use a colander as you see in the picture – as long as you don’t lose the rice in the process. You’re not done yet – almost but not. Once you’ve drained the water go ahead and put the rice back in the original pot that you cooked it in. It’s now going to steam.

Cover your pot and let the rice steam for 10 minutes. If I’m doing meal prep for the week this is all being done while I’m in the kitchen and multi-tasking on other things – roasting veggies, sauteing tofu, etc.. I love it because the rice can be made ahead of time and then I have a whole grain ready for the week. Yes, 40 minutes is a long time to cook brown rice. No one is asking you to do this on a week night – who has time for that? But here’s the thing – it heats up perfectly! So meal prep away. And no worries if you end up making too much rice for the week, make a simple “fried rice” with an egg on top as a go-to dinner to have that’s literally ready in 10 minutes. It doesn’t get any better than that. Simple.

I hope I’ve convinced you to give brown rice another chance, that is if you’ve completely written it off. If we know how to cook better food will taste better. It’s that simple. Eating healthy can taste delicious.

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