Perfect Brown Rice (Baked Brown Rice)

5 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

How to Cook Brown Rice – Brown rice is notorious for taking too long, being underdone, or overdone. Forget the rice cooker, all you need is an oven. Learn how to cook brown rice perfectly with this recipe.

Cooked Brown Rice in Rectangle DishPERFECT BROWN RICE

Learning how to cook brown rice is an essential skill for a healthy household. At least once a week, I bake off a batch of brown rice since we made the switch away from white rice in our house. That’s right, I said bake. This recipe is so foolproof, that I use it instead of the 200 dollar Japanese rice cooker I own.

There is only one trick to this recipe, using boiling water or broth. We use broth and butter for more flavor, but water is a great option for those looking for a classic brown rice recipe. As long as you boil your water first I promise you this method for cooking brown rice will not fail you.

How to Cook Brown Rice

Wondering how to cook brown rice perfectly every time? Brown rice is notorious for taking too long to make, being underdone and crunchy or overdone and mushy. You will never have that experience again if you follow these sage instructions from Alton Brown. Yes, Alton Brown. You ready for it?

You combine 4 ingredients, put it in a 375-degree oven for an hour and you have perfectly cooked brown rice. That’s it. This is a recipe of his from a decade ago and I’ve been making it for almost that long.

Baked Brown Rice

Baked Brown Rice Recipe alterations

I have changed a few things on occasion. Sometimes I use stock instead of water, sometimes no butter or with fresh herbs from my garden. But do not change the timing, temperature and the fact that you start with a boiling hot liquid.

One of my favorite variations of this rice is to boil off skinned dark meat for 30 or so minutes. Then, use that water to flavor the rice. Put the chicken in the pan with the raw rice and stock and let it cook for an hour. Let your imagination go with this dish, but when you need a simple brown rice recipe, pull this out of your recipe file.

If you want to make a one pot meal with baked brown rice I highly recommend my Baked Chicken Brown Rice Vegetable Casserole which is healthy, delicious and super popular on the site.

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Perfect Every Time Brown Rice

A perfect every time Baked Brown Rice that you set a timer on and forget about for an hour. Then you have delicious, fluffy brown rice.
Yield 5 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Course Rice
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 1 1/2 cups long grain brown rice
  • 2 1/2 cups water
  • 1 teaspoon unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  • Place the rice into an 8-inch square or circle baking dish.
  • Bring the water to a boil, add salt and butter to the saucepan. Add the water to the rice and just jiggle the pan a bit to make sure the rice is evenly distributed.
  • Cover the pan and bake for 60 minutes.
  • After an hour, remove from oven and let sit a couple of minutes. Take off the cover and fluff the rice with a fork.

Notes

Recipe adapted from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/baked-brown-rice-recipe.html

Nutrition

Calories: 214kcal | Carbohydrates: 43g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 2mg | Sodium: 706mg | Potassium: 153mg | Fiber: 2g | Vitamin A: 25IU | Calcium: 23mg | Iron: 1mg
Keyword: Brown Rice Risotto

Oven Baked Brown Rice

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. This has become my go-to recipe for making brown rice. I double the recipe and then freeze the cooked rice in quart-size Foodsaver bags. Easy to quickly thaw in water in sink and then pop in microwave to heat. I’ve probably used this recipe a dozen times and it’s always perfectly cooked.

  2. I’ve loved plain white rice forever, but this baked brown rice is really a game changer, it’s fluffy, slightly chewy and really good, no more rice sticking to a stove top pan , takes an hour but worth the wait

  3. In one place you list cooking time as 50 min and in another place you list 60 min. Which is correct? Also, the baking dish in the picture is NOT an 8″ dish. Which is the correct size dish for the listed ingredients. I would prefer making the larger amount of rice. Thank you.

    1. 60 minutes is the correct cooking time. If you have a larger baking dish and want more rice, you can double the recipe (as we did for the photos.)

  4. If I add vegetable stock instead of water, how much kosher salt should I use, I don’t want to make it over salty, thanks!

  5. I’ve been making brown rice this way for several years now and everyone comments on how yummy it is. I’ve shared the recipe with family & friends more times than I can count!! It’s delicious

  6. I am looking forward to using this recipe. I got a new range around Christmas last year and since then I’ve had trouble cooking brown rice. I don’t know why I can’t get the rice to absorb all the water. My new range has electric burners that cycle on and off during the cooking cycle. I wonder if the on/off feature doesn’t keep the rice at the right temperature consistently. Do anyone have any idea why I’m having such trouble? I’ve never had a problem with rice before.

  7. Awesome and easy recipe!

    Question: The second time I tried this, I doubled the recipe because the 8×8 wasn’t enough for my family. I thought it would be OK in a 10.3×14.5in Pyrex. My rice came out slightly hard! Should I have added cooking time, or maybe used a smaller pan so the rice is deeper?

    Thanks!

    1. That sounds like it might have been the issue. Make sure to keep it the same depth and that should resolve the issue.

  8. This was by far the best brown rice I have made. My husband commented that it was as good or better than our favorite Asia restaurant‘s side I would like to add chopped onion and mushrooms to this recipe on occasion. Would you recommend this addition and do I sauté the vegetables first?

    1. Yay! I’m glad you love it so much. Adding onions and mushrooms sounds amazing but you’re right, you’d want to sauté them first otherwise they’ll soak up more of the liquid and your rice will be crunchy. Enjoy!

  9. This is the best brown rice I’ve ever made, normally it gets to mushy for me. I do think my oven runs a little hot so I had a few crunch grains but I’ll play it till it’s perfect. Thanks for sharing your recipe ?

        1. No, I would expect it is par boiled which is why it’s 20 minute, if you still use the boiling water it should be done in 25-30 minutes (oven will still take a little time to heat up the pan well, so the extra few minutes there).

  10. Ive made this a few times now and my rice comes out just a bit on the firm side. Also, if I try to put leftovers in my fridge they always get crunchy. What am i doing wrong?

    1. Sounds like it might have been too hot in the oven. Have you checked if the temperature is accurate? If so, you might have a hot spot. Next time, double check the liquid amount is correct and ensure the foil has a tight seal around the dish so steam isn’t able to escape. I hope this helps!

    1. That would completely change the timing. I would recommend following the instructions on the package just use broth in place of the water amount.

  11. This worked great. We just got a glass-top stove and I HATE it cuz if anything boils over it’s an absolute mess. So this will be my go-to! Thanks!!

    1. Wonderful! I think going to oven baked made a huge difference for me too in how often we enjoy brown rice now too. Plus no more guessing on if it is cooked enough.

    1. Thank you.
      You are a lifesaver
      I want and need to eat more healthy and I love rice. Thank you so very much ??

  12. This is the BEST brown rice you’ll ever have!! Such an awesome hack! Thanks so much for sharing!

  13. This turned out perfectly and I”ve been trying for years to find how to have a reliable way to make well cooked fluffy brown rice. Thank you.

      1. Sabrina, your chicken recipes have become my go-to recipes after what has become so many years of boring meal planning! Thank you so much! I would like to know how you would suggest I could tweak your oven-prepared brown rice recipe to make it a pilaf, utilizing orzo pasta in addition to the brown rice.

  14. I also have a rice cooker that I never use. I usually have the need to sauté some onions and garlic with my rice (especially with white rice), and I can’t do that in the rice cooker, so I gave up on it! lol

  15. I never use my $200 rice cooker either, but I love the $20 one and use it all the time.

    1. My 200 dollar one is in the garage, but the slow cooker gets used all the time. And I am not even cooking for Harpo! I’ve been baking rice a lot recently since I have other things in the oven already.

      1. I am just making this now. I NEVER can get rice right, as well as many other dishes. I do seem to do better using the oven. I have high hopes for this oven rice recipe! I have a question. Is it 50 min or 60? Intro says 50. Instructions say 60….????????

        1. It’s going to be 60 minutes, depending on your oven. You can check at 50 minutes just to be sure. Good luck and I would love to hear how it turns out!

          1. I usually rinse my brown rice to remove excess starch…. Do I still rinse my rice before putting it in the pan…. No one has mentioned that and I find rinsing the rice makes a HUGE difference.