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Looking to add more whole grains to your diet? Brown rice is a great place to start! Let me show you my no-fail method for how to cook brown rice in an Aroma rice cooker.
What are your comfort foods?
I’m not thinking about the ones that make you feel cozy and nostalgic but the ones that, if they’re in the fridge or pantry, make you confident that you can have dinner on the table in about 20 minutes flat?
By the way, my cozy and nostalgic comfort foods are frozen pizza, mashed potatoes and ice cream. But not all at the same time. Unless it’s potato pizza.
Anyway, for me, my confident-dinner comfort food is brown rice. If there’s cooked rice in the fridge, dinner is a no-stress event. (And how many of those do we get?)
Plus, since brown rice is a whole grain it’s super healthy. Quick, easy AND super healthy? I’m in!
How to cook brown rice in a rice cooker
The hardest part of eating whole grains is knowing how to cook them. I mean, most of us were raised on the refined white stuff!
How do you even cook brown rice? And won’t it be hard and dry?
Not if you use a rice cooker!
While I’ve tried many methods of cooking brown rice, for consistent results and ease of use, the rice cooker is my absolute favorite.
I’ll be honest, I did struggle with wondering if I really needed one more appliance in my kitchen. But if you eat a lot of rice like we do, I think it’s worth the storage space!
Let’s cook some rice!
This method was developed with an Aroma rice cooker because that’s what I have and use and love. It’s definitely not the fanciest model on the block, but I’ve found it to be consistent and reliable.
Measure 3 cups brown rice into a largish bowl. I’m not crazy selective about which brand of rice to use. Locally grown is best, but if you don’t live in a rice growing area just pick up some from the grocery or natural foods store. We like this Texmati Brown Rice.
Cover with water and soak for 5 minutes. You may see bits of stuff floating around. These are most likely hulls and chaff, and you can just scoop them off/out and discard. If you look more closely and it’s NOT hulls and chaff but rather unwelcome buggies, you may have bought infected rice or just kept it in your pantry for too long (you may want to buy some grain moth traps…) In that case, discard everything and buy fresh rice from a shop that has a high product turnover.
Drain + rinse the rice. Tump out the rice and water into a colander. I like to use a colander with small holes so the rice doesn’t escape! Give the rice a good rinse then pour it in your rice cooker.
Cover with pre 4-1/2 cups water. I’ve found this to be the perfect amount of water to yield tender yet not mushy brown rice. To save me having to look it up every time, I wrote the correct proportions on my rice cooker with a pink permanent marker. Quirky but efficient!
Turn on the rice cooker! This step is kinda vital, but I have managed to forget to do it once or twice… Plug in your cooker and press the COOK button on the front. Don’t expect a lot to happen when you push it, as the water has to heat up before the cooking can begin.
Wait. In my rice cooker it takes exactly 1 hour from pushing the button to perfectly cooked brown rice. Fortunately one of the benefits of learning to cook brown rice in a rice cooker is that it’s hands-off. You can get a lot of things done in 60 minutes!
Enjoy! If brown rice is on the menu right away, just scoop into a bowl and eat. To keep some ready for quick + easy meals, just let the rice cool completely then place it in a food storage container. Cooked brown rice will keep for about 4-6 days in the fridge. And while you can freeze brown rice, the rice cooker makes it so easy to have fresh rice that it seems unnecessary.
Dinner is easy with brown rice in a rice cooker
Now that you know how to cook brown rice in a rice cooker, you’ll have dinner on the table in no time!
Hey, Thai curry sounds good!
Quick, easy, healthy and delicious.
It’s rice — and your rice cooker — for the win!
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