This Is Why You’re Ruining Your Rice When Cooking

Rice is one of those foods that can be the simplest to make–once you’ve figured out how to do it—yet it also seems to be the easiest to mess up. And there’s a chance you might actually be making one big, very common mistake while you’re cooking the grain that’s essentially ruining your entire dish in seconds.

If there’s one thing you really need to keep in mind when you’re attempting to master the art of cooking rice to perfection, it’s to leave the lid alone.

We can’t stress enough how important it is to keep the lid on for the entire cooking process. Lifting that lid is the fastest way to ruining your rice. See, once your rice is added to a pot filled with boiling water, you’re supposed to cover it with a lid and not lift it while it’s simmering on the stove.

While you might be tempted to take the lid off to give it a stir or just to check on how your food is doing, you’re actually messing with the temperature of the rice and letting out the oh-so-important steam that helps it cook.

It’ll make the cooking time longer because it’s letting out that precious steam and pressure for cooking that’s been building up (that is, until you lifted the lid), and you could be left with not-so-fluffy perfect rice at the end that’s undercooked and not as moist as it could have been.

Ever been left with clumpy, dry rice? Yep, lifting the lid could have caused that. This is why building up that steam inside is so key. Essentially, lifting up the lid will result in your rice not cooking properly, so the lid staying on is crucial.