How To Tell If Rice Is Perfectly Cooked With A Single Glance

Cooking rice sounds easy, but making it truly perfect is surprisingly challenging. 

Experts say that rinsing the grains, picking great varieties, and even cooking rice in the oven can help you to achieve fluffy bliss at home. 

But even though I pride myself on my stovetop method, which took years to perfect, I still sometimes find that the side is more or less cooked than I expected after completing the absorption method. 

This involves letting rice steam in a lidded pot with the hob turned off for at least 10 minutes after all the water has boiled out of the pan.

According to one chef, though, a simple sight test can confirm whether your rice is perfectly cooked or not.

If rice stands up, it’s perfectly cooked, says chef

Sometimes, once the water has cooked away, I notice that the grains of rice in my saucepan all “stand up” at the top, as if they’re looking up at me. 

According to chef and teacher Erica Wides, that’s a sign it’s been perfectly steamed.

Like me, she lets the rice sit for 10 minutes after cooking it, so that the steam trapped under the lid makes it “fluffy”. 

Once it was done, she showed her Instagram followers a pan full of rice which, also like mine, seemed to be standing on its end. 

“You see how these rice grains are actually standing up, like, at attention?” she said. “That’s how you know that this is properly-cooked rice.” 

It likely happens when the grains are steamed at the end of cooking. However, it’s not the only way to test its doneness.

How else can I tell if rice is cooked? 

If you ask the late Julia Child, the secret lies under the channels (gaps) that steam makes in the rice as it cooks. 

In a video showcasing the technique, she previously said: “If you notice, there are those little holes... but you can still see... liquid” at their base when the rice isn’t cooked.

But, she added, when the rice is done, you can “lift up an edge [of rice] and tilt the pan, and if there’s no liquid there” that means it’s good to go.

BBC Good Food, meanwhile, advises: “Check the rice is cooked at the end by trying a grain – this should also be indicated by the appearance of small holes on the surface and all the water having been absorbed.”