Should You Save Your Rice Water?

Rice water is packed with starch and nutrients, making it a game changer for cooking!

Like pasta water, it doesn't deserve to be dumped down the drain.

The main reason for washing your rice is that is cleans off dust, debris, and any excess starch, which can contribute to a gummy texture and hinder the formation of distinct grains.

However, for this reason some cooks avoid washing rice for dishes like risotto, in which distinct grains aren't the goal.

Cooks from around the world have long known that rice water is a useful byproduct in both cooking and housekeeping.

The rice water from those first and second washes - when it runs the cloudiest and milkiest - is what you should reserve for cleaning around the house with. The water from the subsequent washes is what you'll want to use for cooking.

“The best way to explain it is, you know how chefs use pasta water with the sauce?” says JinJoo Lee, the blogger behind Kimchimari. That’s the role rice water can play. Lee recalls seeing her mom use rice water in the Korean soybean paste stew doenjang jjigae and carried the technique on into her own cooking. “I think it adds a bit of thickness because of the rice particles, and then also, there is that hint of the nutty rice flavor in the background,” Lee says. “It makes the liquids a little more robust and it holds the flavors together. It’s not a huge difference, but it certainly adds that quality.”

- via Eater

Benefits of saving rice water:

• Soak fish in cool or room temperature rice water for 20 - 30 minutes to reduce smell.

• Blanch bitter vegetables in rice water to remove the bitterness.

• Replace regular water with rice water to speed up fermentation of pickled vegetables for more flavorful results.

• The starchiness and acidity of rice water makes it effective for cleaning smooth surfaces like glass, ceramics, metal, and mirrors.

• Rice water can be used as a natural fertilizer for indoor plants!