Transitioning your family from white to brown food (rice, grain, sugar) can be a little bit difficult on the taste buds. When we’re used to the white stuff, the brown stuff may seem a little heavy at first. I know I’ve heard the opposite from some of you, but transitioning my family from white rice to brown was actually one of our easier transitions when we were on our healthy eating journey.
But first I had to learn how to cook the stuff. Brown rice cooks a little differently than white rice. And it takes 45 minutes? Really?
One of the things I’ve learned throughout our healthy eating journey is that whole foods may take a little longer to prepare, but that doesn’t mean that they are more difficult to prepare. I just have to plan ahead just a little bit better. Yes, brown rice takes 45 minutes to cook. But do I actually have to watch the pot and babysit my rice? Absolutely not. Start the rice a cookin’, set a timer, walk away and come back 45 minutes later.
Long story short: Cooking Brown Rice is SO Easy.
Here are the basics of Brown Rice Cooking:
- Use exactly twice as much liquid as rice. (For instance, use 2 cups of water with 1 cup of rice.)
- The rice will absorb all the liquid, so if you cook one cup of rice in two cups of water, once the rice is cooked, you will have two cups of cooked rice.
- Don’t bother your rice while it’s cooking. It will get grumpy. (Actually it will get sticky, and you may get grumpy.)
- Sea Salt is your friend. Rice is a little bland without it.
- We LOVE our rice cooked in Chicken Broth. The broth gives the rice excellent flavor and has really helped us transition to the taste of brown rice!
Here’s how to cook brown rice:
- Begin by boiling your water or broth. Remember, use two cups of liquid for every one cup of rice.
- Once the liquid has come to a full boil, pour in the dry brown rice.
- Give the rice a stir. Turn down the burner to a simmering heat level.
- Cover the pot with a lid.
- Set a timer for 45 minutes.
- Do not stir the rice or even bother with looking at the rice until the timer goes off.
- Remove the rice from the heat.
- Salt liberally, or mix your cooked rice into your desired recipe.
I took several pictures to create a tutorial for you, but in just about every picture, the steam from the pot fogged up my camera lense. It would have been a lovely tutorial.
See? Look at the wonderful boiling broth. With steam. This was the least foggy of all the pictures.
Don’t you just feel like you learned an awful lot by looking at it?
Sorry for the lack of tutorial photos. Really though, even without pictures to look at, I do believe you can easily cook brown rice. Then use it to make Rice and Veggie Stir Fry or Spanish Rice…or even add butter and salt and eat it plain!
Does your family like brown rice? How do you like to eat your rice?
