One of the first things my abuelita told me when I was learning how to cook was to ALWAYS wash my rice before cooking. That and to make sure to always taste my food. Since then I've been religiously washing my rice, but never really understood why. Was my packaged Carolina Rice filled with nasty germs and bacterias that needed to be rinsed away? Or was washing my rice going to make it come out tastier and fluffier? I had no clue, all I knew was that I had to wash it!
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I recently had a chat with a few of my fellow Latina friends who find it absolutely unnecessary to wash rice. They swore to me that my rice would actually taste better if I didn't wash and that unwashed rice sticking together and becoming clumpy was a total myth. So I decided to finally test it out for myself. I did and I'm happy to report that my rice wound up tasting better and I actually preferred the texture too. Here are a few reasons why you might want to stop washing your rice!
It tastes better. I'm 100 percent convinced that washing your rice takes away all the taste. Even after adding salt and olive oil my washed rice didn't taste nearly as good as my unwashed rice. This was convincing enough for me!
It's better for you. I've been hearing for years that Asian women actually drink rice water as a natural detox. Supposedly it also works as a good appetitite suppressant. So make sure you don't rinse out those great nutrients in rice!
It improves the texture. This one really depends on how you like your rice. I hate super fluffy rice, I prefer when it's not too soft or too grainy. Not washing my rice always leaves me with the perfect texture and this goes for both brown and white rice.
It's one less step. One of the things I hated the most about washing rice was the extra time it took me. I had to rinse it at least 3-4 times before that cloudy water finally became clear. Now I can just skip that step all together!
It improves your measurements. I like to make my rice in the rice cooker which means I have to throw in the same amount of rice as water. Washing my rice used to always leave me with extra water, sometimes leaving my rice partially uncooked even after the timer went off. I never have this problem now that I don't wash my rice.
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