PSA: You Should Rinse Your Rice
Rice is a fundamental weeknight pantry staple, but when you’re rushing to prep dinner, stopping to rinse the rice can seem like an unnecessary chore. Do you really need to do it?
Here at Delish, we’re always in favor of taking shortcuts when it’s possible, but we also recognize that some specific shortcuts can actually undermine the deliciousness of dinner. We took a deep dive into rinsing rice—what difference it makes and whether it’s necessary. Here’s everything you need to know.
Do You Need To Rinse Your Rice?
Unfortunately, yes. In most cases (with only a few exceptions!) you absolutely need to rinse your rice. Why? Well, that’s where it gets interesting. Many people would have you believe that rinsing is essential because it removes potential impurities, but Delish Senior Food Director Rob Seixas says that’s not the primary reason. Instead, the main reason to rinse rice is to remove excess starch.
You may have noticed this fine white film that coats each grain of rice—and your fingers, if you reach into the bag and pull out a handful. According to Seixas, that dust is starch. Created by the friction of “all the grains rubbing against each other” while the rice is in transit, this fine film starch will become a sticky, gluey substance when exposed to water and heat, leading to clumpy rice.
It’s important to be clear: the starch isn’t exactly the enemy here. Rice is starchy by nature, and in some cases we activate that natural starch to create amazing food (see risotto and congee, for a start!). What’s not ideal is the presence of excess, uncontrolled starch, which can lead to overly sticky, clumpy rice. That’s why rinsing rice is so important.
How Should You Rinse Rice?
There are a few different methods for rinsing rice, and the method you choose depends on how much time you’re willing to spend, as well as the equipment you have on hand. At a minimum, Seixas says you should always rinse the rice in a fine-mesh sieve under running water.
If you want to be more thorough, you can put the rice in a bowl, add water, and run your hands through the grains to agitate them, then pour off the water, add more, and repeat. This last method actually works best if you can dump the rice and cloudy water into a sieve before returning it to the bowl: this ensures you’ll be able to get all the starch off the bottom of the bowl and prevents you from losing rice in the process. But if you don’t have a sieve, you can also just pour it off.
Whichever method you choose, it’s best to continue rinsing until the water starts running clear (if you’re using a bowl, this is usually five to seven times), but you don’t have to be precious about it. “Perfect clarity is very difficult,” Seixas says. “It’s the ideal, sure, but don’t stress about it too much.”
Simply leaving the rice to soak is a third option for removing that excess starch. Seixas is a particular fan of this because in addition to removing the excess starch on the surface of the rice, it also allows the rice to begin hydrating—and this helps the rice to cook more evenly. While soaking isn’t necessarily useful for arborio, glutinous, black, or brown rice, it’s definitely useful in most cases.
If you’d like to try soaking, the process is simple: add the rice to a bowl or liquid measuring cup, then add enough water to cover the grains by at least two inches of water. Let the rice soak for 10 to 20 minutes, then pour both the rice and the water into a sieve and give the rice a quick rinse. From there, you can proceed with cooking.
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