A Simple Cooking Tip for Perfectly Fluffy, Fragrant, and Nutritious Rice

If you want to elevate a simple pot of rice into a delicious, aromatic, and nutrient-rich dish, try applying the following helpful cooking tips. These small adjustments can significantly improve the texture and flavor of your rice, making every meal more satisfying.

How to Cook Soft, Fluffy, and Flavorful Rice

1. Soak the Rice Before Cooking

Many people tend to cook rice immediately after rinsing it. However, soaking the rice for about 10 minutes helps the grains absorb water evenly before cooking. This allows the rice to expand more uniformly, resulting in a softer, sweeter, and more aromatic texture.

This step is especially important if you like mixing white rice with brown rice. Brown rice takes longer to soften, so it’s best to soak it for 1–2 hours beforehand. This ensures that both types of rice cook properly without the white rice becoming overly soft before the brown rice is done.

2. Add a Few Ice Cubes Before Cooking

After rinsing the rice and placing it in the pot, drop in 2–3 ice cubes and let them sit for about 15 minutes before pressing the cook button. The cold temperature slows down the water absorption process, allowing the rice grains to swell gradually and become more tender.

Surprisingly, this simple trick also helps make the rice whiter and fluffier, giving your pot of rice an appealing, restaurant-quality look.

3. Add Vinegar or Lemon Juice to the Pot

To achieve bright white, fragrant, and slightly chewy rice, add a few drops of white vinegar or fresh lemon juice after you’ve added water to the rice. Just one teaspoon is enough to enhance the rice’s texture.

The vinegar smell will disappear during cooking, so you don’t need to worry about any sour taste. Instead, it helps the grains separate nicely, stay tender, and release a gentle aroma. Lemon juice offers a similar effect while adding a refreshing fragrance to the rice.

4. Mix in a Small Amount of Cooking Oil

Another useful tip for perfect rice is to add a small amount of oil—such as vegetable oil, olive oil, or coconut oil—before cooking. The oil coats each grain lightly, making the cooked rice shiny, plump, and visually more appealing.

Important note:
Do not add oil after the rice is already cooked. Doing so may make the rice greasy, heavy, and overly fragrant in an unpleasant way.

5. Add a Pinch of Salt for Better Flavor

A few grains of salt added before cooking can make the rice more flavorful and help it stay fresh longer, especially during hot weather.

If you’re reheating leftover rice by steaming it, sprinkling a bit of salted water over it will bring back the rice’s original aroma and taste, making it almost as good as freshly cooked rice.