Perfect Instant Pot Rice

I’ve been working on perfecting Instant Pot rice cooking, but it has taken me a few iterations to finalize my favored technique. As of now, this technique seems to yield our favourite rice, with the best texture.

Rice is like the goldilocks of food, it needs to be “just right”, not too hard and not too soft. Seems simple but if you get critical it is pretty hard to achieve. The instant pot gives me repeatable results in a hands off manner because it really is set it and forget it. But the perfect rice does take some time.

So the key here is the soak. I don’t know why, I just know it works. It works for both calrose (short grain) and Jasmine Rice. Mrs Sambar is pretty fixated on Thai Hom Mali Jasmine Rice. You’ll have to ask her why. Ours is not to reason why, ours but to do and fry – I think that was Lord Tennyson. Perhaps Lord Tonnyson, ha ha.

Anyway, rice snobbery aside, the recipe is similar but the water ratios are slightly different. We’ve tried increasing and decreasing the amounts and as long as you scale the water as necessary it seems to work. I tend to measure a cup (the plastic cup provided, not a measuring cup) as appropriate for one adult and two rugrats (or two adults), and we usually cook two cups and save some for the rest of the week. The ratio is 1:1.25 for Jasime and 1:1 for Calrose. MAKE SURE TO USE THE SAME CUP FOR RICE AND WATER (so you don’t have variation in the measurement and the ratio remains accurate).

Recipe :

1 cup rice (Thai Hom Mali or Calrose)

1.25 cups water (for Calrose it is 1 cup)

Method :

Start by measuring the rice into the instant pot sleeve and washing it out.

Pour in about quarter or half the instant pot sleeve’s worth and swish the rice around, then drain directly out of the side of the sleeve (no need to strain it in a sieve, some water can stay in the sleeve no problem). Do this three or four times or until the water runs reasonably clear. I usually get to four times before I’m satisfied.

Measure and pour in the appropriate amount of water (1.25 cups for Jasmine or 1 cup for Calrose). It is absolutely CRITICAL that you use the same cup for measuring the rice and the water. Optionally you can add in a couple of bay leaves.

Now set the sleeve in the instant pot and turn it on. Set it to manual, high pressure (the instant pot defaults to high pressure when you click manual) and set the time to 3 minutes. Now click the timer button and set it to 20-30 minutes. This allows the rice a nice pre soak before the instant pot starts pressurizing.

Once the cook is done, allow the instant pot to naturally release (wait 10 minutes after the cook is complete). Then release the pressure if any remains (it usually does), and remove the bay leaves if you had added any in. Now fluff the rice up and let it steam out for a few minutes.

Serve and eat!

Happy Cooking and Happy Eating!