Can You Freeze Rice?
Rice is a staple diet in cuisines from all over the world. It is very filling and also very easy to prepare, making it suitable for people that are often in a hurry. It also goes well with other ingredients meaning it can be used to make a huge variety of dishes.
Rice also expands a lot when cooking so it can be easy to make too much by mistake. This can leave you with a lot of excess rice, and you may be wondering what to do with it. The good news is that you don’t have to throw it away because rice can be frozen. Here we give you some advice on how this should be done, plus some of the benefits of doing so.
1. When Should I Freeze Cooked Rice?
One commonly asked question is how soon rice should be frozen after it has been cooked. The simple answer to that question is: as soon as you can. The longer you leave it, the worse the results will be so don’t leave the cooked rice sitting around for too long.
The process is not at all difficult to do right and it won’t take up too much of your time. If you are in the process of cooking a meal and you realize you have made too much rice, you should start planning to freeze it as soon as you can.
2. Cool the Rice
If you put rice in the freezer when it is still hot, then it will likely just clump together into one big mass. You will get much better results if you allow the rice to cool completely first before freezing it, so make sure that you do. If the rice is still too hot and you are in too much of a hurry then you can put it in the fridge first.
While you really should try and freeze it as soon as possible, it won’t be the end of the world if you end up doing it the following morning.
3. Separate Into Portions
If at some point in the future you are making a meal and you want to use some rice from the freezer, you will want to take just what you need. This can be difficult when the rice is frozen together, so it makes sense to plan ahead to avoid this.
Before putting the rice into the freezer, you should first separate it into serving-sized portions. That will then make it so much easier for you to take what you need, leaving the rest for another day. If you are cooking for more than one person, then simply just take more than one serving.
4. Oil
As mentioned, you should let the rice cool down first to prevent it forming into a single clump. Even if you do freeze it when it is cool, you will still find that the rice sticks together to a degree. The good news is that there is a simple way to remedy this.
To prevent the rice from sticking together, first coat it in a fine layer of oil. To do this, add around 1 tablespoon of oil with rice in a bowl and then toss the rice thoroughly. Most oils will be suitable for this, but it is best to choose those that have little to no flavor.
5. Freezer Bags
When your rice is ready to be frozen, first put it into freezer bags, or maybe a sealed container. When using freezer bags, remember to try and remove as much air from the bag as you possibly can. Otherwise, ice can form from moisture in the air that’s left in the bag and this can damage the rice.
Rice that’s on its own in a bag can easily become squashed, and this could leave you with a mush of rice when it comes to using it. To overcome this, consider placing the bags into a container to help protect the rice.
6. Safety
It is important to be careful when dealing with rice; if you are not then you might end up ingesting potentially harmful pathogens. In uncooked rice, a potentially harmful bacterium is present but this bacterium is killed in the cooking process.
Unfortunately, this bacterium can make a revival if cooked rice is left as it is for long enough. This is one reason why it is a good idea to freeze rice if you intend to use it at a later point. When rice is frozen, these bacteria cannot make a revival, making it much safer to eat. This makes it a good idea to freeze extra rice even if you don’t intend to keep it for long.
7. Use within One Month
Some foods fare better when frozen than others, and some can be kept in for longer than others. Unfortunately, rice is on the lower end of the scale and about the longest you should keep it frozen for is one month. Keep it in for any longer than this and it will soon begin to lose its flavor.
Rice that has been kept in longer might still be suitable in some recipes, and you can try experimenting to see what works. People tend to eat rice fairly often, though, so you should hopefully be able to use up what you have in plenty of time.
8. Reheating
Thawing and heating frozen rice is easy, all you need to do is put it in the microwave. You just need to be sure that it is thoroughly hot all the way through. If you want to take some out for later, you can defrost it by putting it in the fridge instead, and this will give you better results.
As already mentioned, bacteria can grow in rice if you are not careful. For this reason, you should reheat rice once only and no more. That doesn’t mean that rice is dangerous to eat, but it does pay to be careful just in case.
9. Reheat in Saucepan
Another way to defrost and heat up your frozen rice is to do it on the stove. Add some water with the rice in a saucepan, heat it up, and keep on stirring regularly to prevent the rice from clumping together. It will only take a few minutes and will give you better results than using a microwave.
This method is also suitable if you intend to add more ingredients to the rice. The saucepan is already in use so all you need to do is to throw the extras in. It’s an easy to make meal that is both delicious and nutritious.
10. Ready Meals
Another advantage of freezing rice is that it can be frozen alongside other ingredients including beef, pork, chicken, and vegetables. This makes it ideal for people that are often in a hurry because it means that they can have meals ready whenever they are hungry but are short on time.
All you need to do to prepare your ready-made meal is to put it in the microwave until is it hot, and you are ready to eat. You can also freeze your ready-made meals in serving sized portions. You can even prepare different meals so that you have a ready-made selection to choose from.
