How to Cook Rice on the Stove

Close of up basmati white rice in a metal pot.

5 from 7 votes

Do you know how to cook rice on the stove? It's actually SO easy to make rice in a pot. I promise you don't need a fancy rice cooker appliance! If you're tired of burned, mushy, bland rice, we are going to fix that today! I will show you step by step exactly how I make rice for my family, something I do weekly. Rice done right is fluffy and flavorful. No gumminess, no scorching, no crying over burnt rice. Serve it with dinner, or meal prep it with protein and veggies for the week!

Prep Time3

Cook Time10

Steam Time15

Total Time28

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: Asian, Mexican

Servings: people

Calories: 194kcal

Author: The Food Charlatan

Ingredients

1 cup white rice sushi, short, medium, or long grain
1 and 1/2 cups water*
1 tablespoons butter** or oil
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt use 1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 clove garlic optional

Instructions

Add 1 cup dry rice, 1 and 1/2 cups water, 1 tablespoon butter or oil,** and 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt to a medium saucepan. Add 1 clove minced garlic if you like! It's optional! I love the flavor.
Boil. Place a lid on the saucepan and turn the heat to HIGH. Stick around until the rice comes to a boil, this only takes a few minutes. Don't walk away, or it will boil over. My rice boils over probably 9 out of 10 times that I make rice, 😆 so don't panic if it happens, you will just have to clean it up. (Actually, my toxic trait is not cleaning up my boiled over rice mess. Welcome to my house, I'm disgusting.)
Bring the temperature down to low. As soon as you see steam escaping from beneath the lid, it's boiling. Don't you dare lift that lid. Turn the heat down to LOW. Cook on LOW for 10 minutes.
Steam. When the 10-minute timer rings, turn off the heat but don't remove the pot from the stove, leave it right where it is. DON'T peek, don't take off the lid. Set another timer for 15 minutes so that it can steam.
Fluff. When the 15-minute timer rings for the steam, you can finally take that lid off. They always say to fluff the rice with a fork; the goal here is to aerate the rice by lifting it gently. Use whatever utensil you want, but "stirring" is not the best method here, you don't want to smoosh your rice. Insert your fork or spatula underneath the rice and lift, over and over, until the rice is fluffy and big and hot and ready for a pat of butter. Yum.
Serve hot! Store leftovers covered in the fridge for about 4 days.
Freezing Instructions: As soon as your rice is cool, just put it in a ziplock bag and pop it in the freezer. It will stay fresh for up to six months. Reheat in a bowl in the microwave, sprinkled with 2 teaspoons water and covered well so the rice can steam.

Notes

*JASMINE RICE: Jasmine rice is very soft and needs less water. Keep everything the same for the recipe, but use 1 and 1/4 cups water for every 1 cup dry rice.

**TOASTY: If you like your rice toasted, add the butter or oil to the saucepan by itself and warm it up on medium heat. Add the rice (and garlic, if you are into that) and stir it with a wooden spoon for 3-5 minutes, until the rice has a lovely light toasted aroma and some of the grains are turning a very light golden brown. Add the remaining ingredients and do everything else the same. (The photo of brown-looking rice in the post is actually white rice toasted in butter which had browned. If you use oil, it won't get as brown.)

Double the recipe: You can double, triple, quadruple this recipe, no problem. See the chart in the blog post for ratios. You may need to let the rice steam at the end for more like 15-30 minutes, instead of the 10 minute steam called for.

Nutrition