How to Cook Brown Rice Like a Pro (2024)

Side note: You know what the brown rice setting is great for? Cooking super-dense whole grains like spelt, rye, einkorn, whole barley, and whole farro. You can even mix handfuls of several grain varieties and cook them all together.

How to cook brown rice in an Instant Pot

If you haven’t gotten around to grabbing a rice cooker but were all over the Instant Pot craze, there’s good news (and a pot of perfect brown rice) in store for you. Pressure cookers like the Instant Pot make cooking brown rice more straightforward than ever, according to chef Tyler Kord. For this quick-cooking method, stick to a 1:1 rice-to-water ratio on high pressure for 15 minutes. Then use the Natural Release setting for perfectly cooked rice. Kord points out that using Natural Release won’t save you much on total time, but, like using a rice cooker, the method is mostly hands-off and a cinch to execute.

How to cook brown rice on the stove (the standard method)

This method is for the days I’m not rushing and don’t really care how long it takes to cook brown rice—it’s also especially good for maximizing the nutty flavor. While this process follows the one on the back of many bags of rice, the key difference in our technique is the ratio of water to rice: We recommend 1¾ cups of water for every 1 cup of brown rice. Salt is essential: Use about ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (or a heaping ¼ teaspoon Morton kosher) per cup of rice. Bring the rice to a simmer in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook, covered, until rice is tender and water has evaporated, 40–45 minutes. Fluff gently and let sit, covered, off heat, for 10 minutes to make it as light and fluffy as possible.

How to cook brown rice on the stove (the faster way)

Do you want the most distinct, beautifully separated, fluffy-tender grains of rice possible, even on the busiest of weeknights? Forget what you’ve heard about how long it takes to cook brown rice on a stovetop. Grab a large pot, your strainer, and say goodbye to both undercooked and mushy rice forever.

The best thing about this method: The amount of water you use doesn’t matter. That’s because I’m talking about boiling the rice like pasta in a pot of salted water until it’s al dente—cooking time is about 25–30 minutes. Drain the rice, then return it to the warm pot for 10 minutes, covered, off heat, to steam and get even fluffier and drier.

While I was very skeptical about this supremely easy recipe before trying it, it’s actually how I like to cook quinoa and most other grains, and it works just as well for rice. Some of the rice’s flavor does get lost to the excess water—chances are you won’t notice—but so does the starch and anything else clinging to the grains, which means that even if you’re a rice-rinsing devotee, you really can skip that step when choosing this method.

Phew. You made it. Welcome to the world of people who love and know how to cook brown rice—and the total time to get here took less than an hour. Now pick a method and try it in one of these all-star brown rice recipes:

Editor’s note: This story has been updated by Mehreen Karim since it was originally published in April 2017.