Cooking Rice in Your Microwave Oven

Yes, it is possible to make great tasting rice in your microwave oven. In fact, it’s my preferred method for cooking rice. While it isn’t any faster than on the stove top, it is easier and clean up is much quicker, since you can use the same bowl you cook it in to serve it and store leftovers, reducing the amount of dishes you’ll have to wash…and it doesn’t stick and burn to your cookware.

I have a personal preference to white parboiled rice, but you can use any variety you want with no adjustments to the rice to water ratio, with the exception of regular brown rice. If you want to make brown rice in your microwave, I recommend using parboiled brown rice, which can be cooked using the same directions as white rice.

Please do keep in mind that cooking rice in the microwave does require more water than on the stove top. A good rule to remember is 2 parts rice to 5 parts water. What this means is whatever scoop you are using to measure your rice, use it also to measure the water.

Since microwave ovens can vary in power,  you may have to adjust the cooking times, using mine as just a starting guide.

Use a microwave safe container or bowl that is twice as large as the amount of water you will be using. Rice expands, and to prevent boil overs, you need to make sure you give it plenty of room.

For a side dish, I usually use 1 cup of rice to 2.5 cups of water and cook it on high, uncovered for about 18 minutes.

For a main course that requires a lot of rice, I double everything to 2 cups of rice and 5 cups of water, and cook for 30 minutes.

Yellow rice is easy to make. Start with the same directions for white rice and stir in 1 packet of Sazon (with annato) for each cup of rice, before placing it in the microwave.

For a cheap and easy one dish meal, cook the rice according to the above main course directions, stir in a bag of frozen vegetables when it is done, cover and cook it another 10 minutes. Then add your choice of leftover cooked meat, cut into thin strips or bite sized pieces. You can serve with soy sauce, hot sauce, salsa, duck sauce, tomato sauce, etc.

One of my favorite breakfast variations is yellow rice, spinach, and scrambled eggs, served with hot sauce.