Let me rephrase. The easiest way to cook rice is to use a rice or pressure cooker! However, if you don’t have either of these on hand or you need to cook a very large batch of rice then I have the solution for you.
Bake your rice in the oven
Baked Rice
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Yep it’s a little trick I use at work to cook very large batches of rice but it also works well in the home. How many times have you burnt rice on the stove? Me? Too many times to count! It’s easy to get distracted with other dishes, kids, dogs, you name it.
Baking the rice in the oven is VERY forgiving but the best thing is you can set the timer on the oven to turn off after the rice is finished cooking and go about the rest of your prep. Then when you are ready to pull it out it’s still perfectly warm.
The recipe below serves a family of 4 but can be scaled up as much as you need. Also note that brown rices take longer to cook. Add 30 minutes on average to the cooking time.
Tips to cooking rice in the oven
- Rinse the rice to remove the excess starch. This makes your rice fluffy not sticky
- For most white rices a good ratio of rice to water is 2 : 3 1/2 so for 2 cups of rice you would use 3 1/2 cups of water. This can be scaled up for larger batches
- Cover the rice with plastic wrap first then foil. No the plastic wrap will not burn, melt or harm you in any way!
- For a 2 cup batch of rice cook at 350 f for 1 hour. Larger batches will take slightly longer
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- Rinse rice to remove starch
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- Cover with plastic Wrap
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- Then cover with foil
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- 1 hour later you have perfect rice
Ingredients
- 2 cups white basmati rice
- 3 1/2 cups water
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350ºf
- Rinse rice thoroughly to remove excess starch. This makes the rice fluffy not sticky
- Add rice, salt and water in baking dish. For 2 cups of rice an 8x8x2 pyrex or aluminum baking pan works well.
- Cover dish with plastic wrap and then foil
- Bake for 1hr
- Remove and fluff with fork
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what size pan did you use for the image? was it a full or half sized aluminum pan?
I cook for a girls camp in the summer. I feed approximately 150 people for a week. One of the dinners I prepare calls for a cilantro rice. In the past I have used a pressure cooker and made multiple batches, and kept them warm in the oven. How large of a quantity can I make with this baking method? Would the cooking time increase? Thank you.
I just did this and the plastic wrap DID melt.
That’s happened to me once before and I was using a different plastic wrap. I typically use a restaurant grade brand from Costco. Skip the plastic wrap and just use foil. Baking in the oven is the key step.
@ Erin and New South Food Co. Thank you for your comments. The plastic wrap was my concern. Again thanks. I’ll be sure NOT to use it.