Rice is the dish people cook a hundred times and still get wrong twice a month. Here is the trail a careful cook walks — the next seven searches, in order, each with the two-sentence answer and the query to run.
Two decisions before the heat goes on decide how the rice turns out.
One cup of long-grain white rice to about one and three-quarter cups of water: bring to a boil, cover, drop to the lowest simmer for 18 minutes, then rest off the heat for 10 with the lid on. The rest is not optional — it is where the last of the water is absorbed.
Rinse until the water runs mostly clear if you want separate grains — you are washing off surface starch, which is what glues them together. Skip it when you want sticky rice, and skip it for enriched US rice if you care about the added vitamins.
Lowest possible heat once it is covered — if you hear a rolling boil, it is too high and the bottom will scorch before the top is done. A heavy pan with a tight lid does more for rice than any technique.
The two failures, and which one is recoverable.
Drain it, spread it in a thin layer on a baking sheet, and dry it in a low oven for a few minutes — you are evaporating the water it could not absorb. Badly mushy rice does not come back; turn it into fried rice and move on.
Cold, day-old rice, a very hot pan, and everything prepped before you start — fresh rice steams instead of frying and turns to paste. Scramble the egg first, take it out, then return it at the end.
Rice is the one leftover with a genuine safety catch, and almost nobody knows it.
One hour is the sensible limit, and two is the absolute ceiling. Uncooked rice carries Bacillus cereus spores that survive boiling — they germinate at room temperature and produce a toxin that reheating will not destroy.
Add a splash of water, cover, and reheat until it is steaming hot right through — 165°F, once, not repeatedly. Cooked rice keeps three to four days in the fridge, and reheating it a second time is not worth the risk.
Ratios here are for long-grain white rice on a stovetop. Brown, basmati, jasmine and short-grain all want different water and time — the method holds, the numbers do not.
You just walked 7 searches for “how to cook rice”. The extension maps the trail right on your results page — for anything you search, not just the journeys we’ve written.