It’s possible but the cheapest rice cooker is going to be more consistent than a seasoned pro. I can cook rice fairly well without a cooker but 1 out of 10 times it’s awful.

I love my Instant Pot. You can probably find used ones now. It makes perfect rice and I use it to make oatmeal from steel cut oats nearly every morning. I also use it to steam vegetables like broccoli, especially potatoes for when I make mashed potatoes.

Rinsing rice does wonders. Without a rice cooker you’ll need to strain it, but it’s still worth it.

1. Measure rice by volume. Let’s say 2 cups worth
2. Put into fine colendar and rinse until the water comes out clear. Mixing with your hand will speed this up. You can also do this in the pot you’re going to cook in and dump water out
3. Put strained rice in your pot
4. Add cold water. The ratio of water to rice matters a lot and varies by species of rice. The ratio will be printed on whatever container your rice came in. For Jasmin rice it’s 2 water to 1 rice, so for our two cups of rice you’ll need 4 cups of water
5. Cover, turn on medium-high heat, being to boil. Don’t go far because it will boil over when it does boil
6. Turn the heat down to low, crack the lid, and set a timer. The amount of time needed will vary based on rice. For Jasmin, 15 minutes is a good check-in time
7. Pop the lid. See water bubbling up? If yes, replace lid and come back in a few minutes. If not, use a wooden spoon to get a peek at the bottom of the pot. See water? If yes, replace lid and come back fairly soon to check again. If not, your rice is done. Turn the heat off, fluff, enjoy.

We made rice for years using this method and it is a very reliable cooking method. Rice doesn’t really leave you a lot of wiggle room though, which is where a rice cooker comes in handy. As an added bonus, some rice cookers come with water lines in them. I measure my dry rice into the cooker, rinse using the cooker, dump most of the water out, and fill to the appropriate level.

Different species of rice have very different textures and somewhat (subtle) different flavorss.

Some rice, like basmati, can be cooked using the pasta method (intentionally use way too much water and strain the excess off after the rice is cooked). I guess all rice could be cooked that way, but you would be giving up some starch.

Just get a rice cooker. It’s worth it.

Cooking rice is a notoriously hard problem (and for that reason I recommend noodles instead) but my tip is:

• Don’t (!) do the 2:1 thing where you mix 2 cups of water with 1 cup of rice. Some of the water will boil off and the ratio will be distorted, except if you close your cooking pot, in which case it begins to foam like crazy and give you something to clean up
• Do just fill a large pot with lots of water and make it boil; then when it boils add the rice and cook a certain time with the pot open. I’ve made the best rice this way.

It’s possible, the secret ingredient is keeping an eye on it.

Measure one cup of rice, whatever the volume of the cup is now add double the amount of water and bring to a boil. Once it starts boiling lower the heat.

Here comes the secret ingredient, keep an eye on it. You’ll soon notice it’s not as watery anymore, but you still see bubbling. Stir and check it’s not getting stuck to the bottom. When you see the water is practically gone, remove from the heat and cover pot with lid. Let rest for 5 mins.

Done, perfect rice!

If it’s starting to get stuck to the bottom, removing and letting it rest with a lid on for a few minutes usually helps in unsticking it and making it fluffier.

If you didn’t keep an eye on it well enough and it’s burning at the bottom, remove immediately and transfer as much of the unburnt rice to another pot, cover and let it rest. (Add water to the burnt bottom in the original pot and cover as well, it will help with the cleaning)

I usually eyeball my rice so I use the finger method which is,

Rinse and drain your rice in a sieve first

Add it to the pot and level it off

Put your index finger on top of the rice and add cold water till it touches your first knuckle

Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover until cooked

You can always buy a rice cooker but I think it’s good to learn how to cook without specific instruments, it also cuts down clutter in the kitchen.

If it helps, you can think of a rice cooker as a “boil under all the water is gone” hotplate. They’re great for soups.

Jasmine rice. Makes a huge difference if you like white rice. Tastes like from a restaurant and pleasantly sticky.

Cook on lowest heat. Check in 20 minutes. If dry, add water. If watery, drain the excess or continue cooking into porridge.

I have better luck with a pot on the stove than a rice cooker. Start with some olive oil, add the rice, add water so the water line is 1cm above the rice line. High heat. Stir occasionally. Once it’s at a full boil, give it a final stir, turn down to low and put a lid on it. Let sit for 10 min. Turn stove off. Serve with butter, pepper, salt. Boom.

This is for white rice btw.

Add rice and water in a 1:2 ratio (by volume, eg. 2dl rice to 4dl water for 3-4 people), add salt and heat to a boil. When it boils, turn down heat so it only just simmers slightly and wait until no excess water is left. Keep the lid on the whole time. This method works with jasmin and basmati white rice for me.

Level 1

2 to 1 ratio.

2 cups of water, bring it to a boil 1 cup of rice, add after water is boiling Reduce heat to simmer (simmer is less than medium but higher than just warm, on my stove it goes up to 10, I turn it down to 2.4). Put on lid Wait 20 minutes Eat

If it starts to boil over with the lid on just lift the lid so it will go back down. I add either some oil and salt or some (1 or 2 tblsp) salted butter to the water. People will tell you to rinse the rice first, but that’s level 2, get to level 1.

Ok. Let’s do this! If you have a 4 cup pyrex/microwavable measuring cup, it is much easier.

• Sauce pan with a lid. Nonstick is fine.
• 2 cups of rice using dry measuring cup
• 3 cups of water
• Salt if using unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons of butter

1. Put empty pan on stove and set heat to medium-high. If these are steel pans, stick to medium. Go towards high if nonstick as it takes a bit to heat up.
2. Put water and butter in microwavable cup and throw it in the microwave until it starts to simmer, maybe 3 minutes? Depends on microwave and dish.
3. While you are waiting on microwave, put dry rice in pan and gently stir/fold. They will start to turn white, but don’t let them burn. If you need to take the pan off and turn the heat down, do it. We are just preheating the rice and pan up. Add salt if needed.
4. Get ready. As soon as that water is hot enough to boil or close to, take it out, pour it in the pan. It will be violent.
5. Do a quick stir, throw the lid on, and turn the heat down to the lowest setting. The water should fully cover the rice.
6. Walk away. The bottom might toast a little, but that is fine as long as it doesn’t full on burn.

After 20 minutes or so, you can do a real quick check and if it looks kind of wet, throw the lid back on and wait.

At this point, you should have perfectly acceptable rice. Take the lid off, stir the rice with a more folding motion to let it steam any additional moisture out.

I cook rice without a rice cooker all the time, and some of the tips you’re getting seem dubious to me. Rice is pretty forgiving though, so maybe those recipes work, but I do it a bit different.

I treat all species of rice exactly the same, and they all come out perfect. Short/medium grain rice comes out just sticky enough so you can grab chunks of it with chopsticks, long grain rice comes out beautifully fluffy, no stickage, with all the grains nicely separated.

I use a 1:1 rice to water ratio, plus an extra quarter cup of water. That bit is important - the extra quarter cup is what evaporates off and escapes as it boils/simmers, the rest is absorbed into the rice. Doesn’t matter if I’m cooking one cup of rice or ten, I use an equal amount of water plus a quarter cup.

I bring the water to a boil first, then dump the rice in. Wash it or don’t - I usually don’t, and the difference is slight. Once the rice is in, I turn it down to a simmer, put a kitchen towel over the pot, then squish the lid down over the towel, onto the pot. The towel helps make a better seal to trap more of the steam, but without the danger of making a pressure bomb. The towel also prevents condensation from collecting on the lid and dripping into the rice, which can make it soggy towards the end of the cook. I simmer it for 20 minutes, turn off the heat, then let it rest for another 20, with the lid still on. Leave the lid on until after it’s rested, or else some steam will escape and your rice might end up “al dente”. Once it’s rested, take the lid off and stir it to fluff it up a bit, and you’re golden.

I’ve been making it that way for years with several different kinds of rice, and it’s worked like a charm for all of em.

Plain white basmati rice.

One cup rice. If it’s not washed, wash it.

2 1/4 cups water.

1 heaping teaspoon salt.

Put rice, salt, and water in pot.

Bring to boil. Stir a little to keep rice from sticking too much.

Soon as it boils, take off heat, put heat to low, then put pot back on heat and put a lid on it.

~ 20 minutes later, check. Should not be any water in the bottom of the pot. If no water, eat!