Perfect Parboiled Rice – Cooking rice is easy, all you need is three ingredients but at times, you overcook the rice or under cook it, make it salty or use less salt. Today I am sharing my way of cooking the perfect parboiled rice.
Parboiled rice is a forgiving rice, you can not ruin the rice as quickly as you can with regular rice. If you over boil it, unlike regular rice it will not turn mushy so quick.
If you under cook it, all you have to do is add hot water and let cook some more and it won’t stick together.
How to Make Parboiled Rice
Long grain basmati rice is the rice I love to use in cooking, but after trying the parboiled basmati rice, it became my favorite.
As a food blogger, parboiled rice if cooked properly will look great in pictures and that’s another reason why I prefer using parboiled rice.
Parboiled rice has more nutrients than normal basmati rice.
The process of making perfect parboiled rice is almost the same as cooking the usual basmati rice but there are fewer chances of messing it up, in a way it is a forgiving rice.
Easy Perfect Parboiled Rice Recipe
In this recipe (and it is an easy parboiled rice recipe), I will teach you how to make Basmati long grain parboiled rice.
The amount of salt is measured to be perfect so is the water and the timing, you will enjoy cooking parboiled rice after this post.
I am using boil and drain method in this recipe, it is faster and more convenient.
Hopefully in the near future, I will be sharing other methods of making different types of rice.
Parboiled rice tastes good in recipes like Indian Biryani, Mexican Rice and chicken, even Nigerian Jollof Rice.
If you like to add flavors to your white rice then these two recipes are try worthy:
Coconut Milk Rice
Coconut Water Rice
This is how you make parboiled rice!
Ingredients
- 1 cup uncooked Basmati parboiled long grain rice
- 1 leveled tablespoon salt
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 7 ½ cup water
Instructions
- Wash and rinse the rice until the water is almost clear.
- Soak rice in lukewarm water for at least 20 minutes.
- In a pan, boil the water, add salt and olive oil.
- When the water comes to a rolling boil, add the rice, let it come to a boil again.
- Cook the rice on medium-high heat for 14 minutes.
- Drain the rice. Return the rice to the pan and cover. Keep the rice covered for at least 15 minutes before serving.
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I never tried this way, this is huge amount of water per cup, will try it next time!
Hi Farida,
This is a boil and drain method, it requires more water so the rice doesn’t get starchy and stick together, also one cup of par-boiled rice when cooked become much bigger and longer than normal rice. believe me, this much water is the right amount. Please let me know your feedback whenever you try it 🙂
Your rice comes out just beautiful! I can see why you like to use this method, especially for photoshoots!
Thanks Chris 🙂
The rice came out just beautiful! It’s perfect white and perfectly cooked!
Thanks Nagi, you are so sweet 🙂
Wow it looking perfect. I will try it when next i cook my rice
The rice came out awesome, cooked to perfection. Thanks for the recipe, I’ll definitely be cooking parboiled this way from now on. 🙂
Just one -rather theoretical- question. Why soak the rice? It didn’t seem to have any noticeable effect on volume, so I guess the water didn’t actually penetrate the rice.
The soaking makes the cooking time shorter.
I thought you are not supposed to rinse the parboiled rice.
It depends on the brand you are using!
When you return the rice to the pan after draining the water, you say to return it to the pan and cover it for 15 minutes. Shouod the heat still be on medium-high? (I doubt it…?) Or, should it be on low? Or do I turn off the heat entirely and just let it sit covered while the stove is off? Thanks very much for clarifying.
Hi, the heat should be off! Hope this helped 🙂
I’ll have to look for parboiled Basmati next time I’m at the store. I find it so annoying when rice doesn’t turn out right.
My husband is a big lover of rice. I’ll have to try this.
Let me know, how it turned out for you 😉
thanks for the details.. i have not tried parboiled basmati yet..
and did not realize that this looks better photographed :)that is a cool tip to know
You are welcome Vidya 🙂
A good recipe to master. It goes with everything!
Do you have any comments on how much water, salt, olive oil to add for 2, 3 cups of rice or should I just multiply up? 1 cup of rice is not enough for my family and I still think 15 cups of water for 2 cups of rice is too much. Thanks
Hi Annie, the idea behind adding that much water is to allow each grain of rice to cook freely and not produce starch and get sticky. You can add less water as long as the rice doesn’t get starchy while cooking. You can always keep extra hot water aside and add it to the rice if the water reduced or the rice looked starchy. I hope this helped 🙂
Great recipe, thank you!
How much water does one need for the rice cooker method?
I have used 2.5 cups of water per cup of rice in my rice cooker. I wasn’t very happy as the cooke rice remained a but rubbery or grains too separated
I have never made parboiled rice in a rice cooker before, I’m not sure I can offer more guidance on this.
wow, I tried this and came out with rice that didn’t go to mush and the grains did seem longer. I have always had a terrible time with rice and this method turned out really well. This is now the method I will use. Thank you
Thank you so much for your kind comment 🙂
I was a bit merit l nervous I would fail again but with your simple steps my rice came out perfect! Thank you
You are most welcome 🙂