Cooking Brown Rice for Meal Combinations & Snack Foods

I was asked to do a page and a video on cooking brown rice, and I quickly said yes.  I take brown rice for granted because I've been cooking with it for over 40 years.  

Brown rice is the baseline for many of our meals on The Healthy Diet Paradise.  We use it for layering our broccoli, cheese and brown rice casserole, we use it as a filler food for our combination plates, and for our black beans, rice and cheese snacks.

One of the benefits of brown rice is that it's loaded with carbohydrates.   When active people go on our hair loss nutrition program, they tend to lose a lot of weight.  Brown rice helps to control weight loss because of the high carb count.

Brown rice controls blood sugar to a much higher degree, and will not cause the serious blood sugar spikes that white rice does.  

Personally, I prefer the taste of brown rice.  It's chewy and nutty with a slightly sweet accent.  And it goes with just about everything.

Cooking Brown Rice With Measuring Method

Cooking Brown Rice Using the Standard Measuring Method:

•  2 cups of brown rice and 4 cups of water.
• 1 cup of brown rice and 2 cups of water. 
• 3 cups of brown rice and six cups of water
  
  

So it works like this:  Whatever you measure out in rice, you use double the water.

Boil the rice on a medium flame for 20 minutes. You don't have to put a lid on the pot until the rice is nearly evaporated.  Putting the lid on later will prevent the water from boiling over onto the stove.

Watch Our Video for Step by Step Instructions 

Cooking Brown Rice Using the Finger Method

The finger measuring method we use is ridiculously simple, and anyone can do it.  It will save you lots of time, and will take away the headache of using measuring tools.

This method is very simple, and you only need your fingers to measure and cook brown rice.

The first thing you do is put the amount of rice you need in a regular pot.  The next thing you do is add enough water to cover the top of the rice.  

Push your index finger all the way down the water and rice to the bottom of the pot.  While holding your index finger at the bottom, take your thumb and find the level of the rice. Then remove your finger while holding the spot where your thumb is.  The thumb is your rice level.

Put your index finger back into the water at the rice level. Pour more water into the pot until it reaches the level where your thumb is.  The level of the water should match where your thumb is.  If this is confusing, use the standard measuring method.

Cooking Brown Rice for Meal Combinations

Brown rice can be used as a cereal, as in the picture below. This cereal below is used as a gluten free breakfast.  It contains brown rice, blueberries, nuts, bananas and cashew nut milk.

This meal below contains brown rice, black beans, pinto beans, Peruvian beans and cheese.  It's one of the tastiest and easiest meal combinations that we have.  Beans and brown rice make a complete protein and this meal is very important for vegetarians.  

This bean and rice combination below is also very importatnt for growing children because they're constantly hungry.  You won't break the bank because this meal is very inexpensive.

Cooking brown rice is required for our broccoli, cheese and chicken casserole.  Brown rice is layered at the bottom of this casserole.

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Note:  The same measurement is used for quinoa.  Click here for our quinoa recipe.

This measuring method also works for black rice.