Rice is a staple food that’s eaten by billions of people around the world. You still think cooking rice is simple as you open the rice cooker. Then, a delicous cooked rice for this dinner appears in your eyes?
Not really, it may appear so easy to cook, but that’s far from reality. Cooking it is a bit tricky. Put too much water and it becomes soggy. Minimize the water and the rice could become undercooked.
If you always find yourself having to deal with soggy rice, you likely ask this question all the time—how to fix watery rice? Fortunately, there are several ways for you to salvage this common cooking booboo without throwing it away or giving it to your dog.
Draining excess water
This is the most common way of fixing water rice. It’s also very straightforward that you should be able to pull it off. You’ll only need a couple of potholders to do this.
Follow these steps to drain excess water:
- Start by removing the lid from the pot. Using two potholders hold the sides of the pot so you can drain the excess water from the rice.
- Place the pot back to the stove but don’t put back the lid.
- Put the pot on low heat so that the rice will continue cooking. This should slowly evaporate the remaining water as well as excess moisture.
- Check from time to time if the rice has dried out.
- Turn off the flame but let the rice sit for a minute or so before you remove it from the stove.
- Serve the rice
Drying it in an oven
Another way to salvage watery rice is to dry it in an oven. Aside from the oven itself, you will need a baking sheet, spoon, and parchment paper.
Here’s how to do this trick:
- Remove a part of the parchment paper that’s wide enough to cover the baking sheet.
- Scoop the soggy rice using a spoon, and put it on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Spread the watery rice evenly.
- Put the baking sheet in the oven and heat the rice on low heat.
- Open the oven door from time to time to check if the rice has dried out.
- Turn off the oven but let the rice stay there for 2 minutes.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven using two potholders.
- Serve the rice.
Putting the soggy rice in the fridge
Yes, you can also salvage soggy rice by putting it in the fridge. This is very similar to the previous trick, only this time you would be placing the parchment paper lined baking sheet in the ref instead of the oven.
You’ll need a baking sheet, parchment paper, spoon, oven, and fridge to pull off this trick.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Tear out a piece of parchment paper and use it to cover the baking sheet.
- Scoop out the soggy rice using a spoon and distribute it evenly over the baking sheet covered with parchment paper. I suggest spreading the rice in a very thin layer so that the rice will dry out faster.
- Bullet Point 2Place the baking sheet in the fridge. After 20 to 30 minutes, open the fridge to check if the cooked rice has dried out.
- Remove the baking sheet from the ref. Place it in the microwave to reheat the cooked rice.
- Serve the rice.
Using salt
Finally, you can save watery rice with the help of good ole table salt. You will only need a handful of table salt and small sauce bowl to do this trick.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Put a handful of salt in a small sauce bowl.
- Place the bowl in the rice pan.
- The salt in the bowl should be able to absorb the excess water after 10 to 15 minutes.
How to avoid watery rice
But what can you do to avoid cooking soggy rice? Here are some pointers to keep in mind:
- The rule of thumb in cooking rice is to follow this ratio—one cup white rice for one cup of water if you are cooking short grain white rice. If you’re cooking medium grain white rice, you should use 1.5 cups of water for every cup of rice.
- The ratio is different when you are to cook brown rice as it needs more water. I recommend using one cup of brown rice for every 2 cups of water.
- Never stir the rice. This can activate the starch and make the rice soggy.
Conclusion
As you can see, you can still salvage watery rice. You can remove excess fluid from it, dry it in an oven, or put it in the fridge. You can also add salt on top of the lid. Any of these tricks should fix soggy rice.
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