If you add flavouring to the cooking water, the rice absorbs it as it cooks. Boom! Flavoured rice! These can go with either instant or regular rice.

Core Ingredients

• Dried rice, instant or regular, which you can cook with flavourings and vegetables and stuff.

Variations: Flavouring Add a stock cube or some spices to the water before it cooks. We recommend mushroom stock or curry powder. If you’re only making a wee bit of rice, you can add only part of the stock cube, but rice makes great leftovers.

• The saddest variation: Add a stock cube to the rice-water mixture and stir a bit. It won’t fully dissolve right away, but you can even out the flavour by stirring some more once the rice is done cooking.

• More effort and less sad variation: Boil water in the kettle, dissolve the stock cube in a mug of hot water and add it to the rice. Then add the rest of the water as usual.

• Saffron is popular and adds a really nice colour.

Variations: Vegetables This is an ideal place to use frozen or wilty vegetables, since they cook with the rice. For God-Tier, make regular rice on the stove or rice cooker, wait until it’s partway done, then throw the vegetables on top of the rice to steam. For us mere mortals, add them at the beginning so you don’t forget. If you do this with instant rice, you might need to microwave it at the end if the veggies aren’t fully cooked.

• Add any frozen vegetables. Peas are a classic.

• Or any wilty vegetables from the back of your fridge.

• Or fresh vegetables, if you’ve got them and are willing to chop.

• Add canned beans. Drain and rinse them, of course. Rinsing in the can totally works and saves washing the colander. If you add them now, they will get warm with the rice. If you add them after cooking the rice, they’ll be closer to room temperature. The choice is yours.

God-Tier: Coconut Rice If you’re replacing the water with something—for example coconut milk— you need to make rice in a pot or a rice cooker. Boiling coconut milk in the kettle to make instant rice sounds like an idea with negative long-term consequences to the kettle.

• Replace half the water with coconut milk. Cook as usual.

• Goes great with some frozen veg thrown in before cooking, and some seeds or nuts added after cooking.

• You can also cook rice normally, add some of a can of coconut milk, a little curry powder, and sweet chili sauce for a delicious take on Thai coconut curry!