When you are cooking rice, drain water from rice is a necessary process, unless you are cooking porridge.
Regardless of whether you are draining rice before cooking or after cooking.
Some people could do it perfectly without wasting a single particle of rice.
On the other hand, some people experience headaches when it comes to draining rice, spending longer time doing this.
Here I am going to talk about methods of draining water from rice.
Drain water from rice could be done with or without a strainer (colander).
Table of Contents
How to drain water from rice
You can drain water from rice without a strainer, with a pot together with a lid, with a sieve, or with special gadgets which are available in the market. To drain water from rice without a strainer, just put in the water and rice into the pot, swirling the water, and drain the cloudy water into the kitchen sink and stop before the rice grains are about to fall down along with the water, then repeat the steps a few times until the drained rice water become clear.
Drain rice without a strainer (colander).
For me, I never use a strainer to drain rice.
I just use the rice cooker inner pot or any big bowl.
First, I put the rice (uncooked) into the rice cooker inner pot, how many cups of rice are determined by how much you want to cook.
Next, pour water (make sure the water is filtered and chemically free) into the rice cooker inner pot. Just make sure the water level is higher than the rice grains level.
After that, stir the water to move the rice grains (you may use your hand to stir the water or move the pot to trigger the rice movement), this step is to get the starch out of the rice and enter into water. You will find out the water becomes cloudy.
Then, tilt the rice cooker inner pot and pour the water into the kitchen sink, stop pouring the water when the rice grains are about to drop into the sink.
Again pour water into the rice cooker inner pot, stir it, and pour cloudy water into the kitchen sink until rice grains are about to drop outside.
Repeat the above steps until the water becomes clear.
Normally I repeat about 3 to 4 times before the water becomes clear.
This method is easy and just needs a pot (or a big bowl) to do it.
The part that you need to pay attention to is during pouring the cloudy rice water into the kitchen sink, as you need to have a good timing to stop pouring water when the rice grains are about to drop outside.
Drain rice with a lid and a pot
This method is quite simple as well.
Get a pot which comes with a lid.
Fill in the pot with rice and clean water.
Agitate the rice and swirl it, you may use your own hand to wash the rice, make sure the water becomes cloudy as starch dissolves into it.
Then close the pot with the lid, tilt the pot and pour the rice water into the kitchen sink.
Because the gap between the pid and the pot is small, only water can pass through the gap, and the rice will remain in the pot.
But watch out, sometimes you may miss some rice when you do not close the gap properly.
You may repeat the steps a few times until the poured water becomes clear.
Drain rice with sieve
Another simple way to drain rice.
First prepare a sieve, just make sure the sieve mesh size is smaller than rice particle size so that the rice would not drop from the sieve.
Use a pot or a bowl to fill in with rice and water, then wash it until the water becomes cloudy.
Then pour the water towards the sieve.
The sieve will trap the rice grain that manages to fall down from the top.
Repeat the rice draining process with a sieve until the drained rice water becomes clear.
Drain rice with special gadgets
On the market there are some gadgets purposely designed to drain rice.
Here I am going to introduce two gadgets which I think are useful.
a) Washing bowl with strainer
Basically it is a big stainless steel bowl with evenly fine drainage holes at the side of it.
There is a slanted design at the bottom of the washing bowl which promotes water drainage faster and easily.
The fine drainage holes at the side together with the slanted design at the bottom make this gadget able to drain water from rice with great efficiency, saving you time and effort.
b) Leaf Shaped Rice Wash Strainer (Clip on type)
Basically it is a piece of strainer with a leaf shape which is clipped on the pot.
Before using it, make sure the gadget is properly installed at the circumference of the pot, perfectly grip on it.
Put the rice and water into the pot, swirling the water to move the rice, and the water will become cloudy.
Then pour out the cloudy water and the clip-on leaf shaped strainer will trap the rice grains and prevent them from falling together with water.
Final Thought
It does not matter if you choose to drain water from rice with or without a strainer.
Use that method which you feel most comfortable with.
The most important thing is that you are able to rinse off the starch and cook fluffy rice instead of mushy, sticky, and clumpy rice, and make it harder to clean the rice cooker inner pot.