I cook a lot of rice.  It’s an easy side.  I do white rice, brown rice, wild rice.  I make rice pilaf, rice pudding, risotto and fried rice.  Rice is an easy and inexpensive pallet for a cook to get creative.  It’s not difficult to make on the stove top, it really isn’t, so even though I have owned this Pampered Chef Microwave Rice Cooker for years, I really never paid it much mind.

Then one day, I was in a hurry and just wanted a quick side.  I already had like three other pans that I was using and would need to hand wash and it occurred to me I could just use the microwave rice cooker I had sitting on my pantry shelf collecting dust.  So, I rinsed it out.  I remembered the instructions because they are super easy and I took the liberty to even get a little creative adding a pad of butter, tossed in some chopped onions that I had on hand from the rest of the meal, some salt and pepper and popped it in the microwave.  The best part was that the microwave beeped when it was ready and I didn’t have to worry about burning it, it was done and just waiting nice and hot for whenever I was ready to get to it!

Well, that did it.  When I opened my microwave, it was still hot and perfectly steamed.  When dinner was through, we still had some left over so I put the lid back on and popped it in the fridge, then the next day when it was time to heat, into the microwave it went again.  Then right into the dishwasher.  By my estimation, it saved me 1 pot, 2 serving dishes, 1 Tupperware container worth of dishes. It was ready in half the time and I didn’t have to worry about burning the rice or the rice sticking to the bottom of my pan leading to soaking and possibly scraping.  That works for me.

So, I thought I would send out a quick tutorial on how to make the very basic rice.  This is plain white Jasmine rice.  Instructions differ for brown or wild rice of course, but still much less time because you are essentially pressure steaming the rice.

This is my Pampered Chef Microwave Rice Cooker.

Start by placing one cup of rice in the bowl.

I like to add 2.5 cups of water per cup of rice.

A healthy pinch of salt. (1/2 tsp. or so)

Mix.

Place the guard on top.

Then seal on the cover.

Place it in the microwave.

Set the time to 12 minutes on high (my microwave is 1100 wats, adjust this to the wattage of your specific microwave per instructions)

And 12 minutes later, this is what you will have.

***Gluten-free