I Tried 10 Instant Rice Brands and This Is Still the Only One I’ll Buy

Rice is a classic go-to side across many cuisines, but because it’s so commonplace it often gets over looked as something to prepare when you set out to make dinner. And unfortunately, depending on the type of rice you’re making, it can often take the longest to cook. So on those nights when you need rice and you need it now—which heat-and-eat or instant rice should you turn to? I tried 10 different brands to find out.

When tasked with trying a bunch of plain rice back to back to back, you can imagine that the first thing that went through my head was, “how different can one really be from another?”

As it turns out: a lot.

Generally, when rice is involved on our table, we’re expecting it to mingle with something saucy or hang out under a dish. So, in truth, whatever you can find at the store in your budget will perform just fine. But on those occasions a pile of rice is providing the sweet sweet relief from a five-alarm heat or the grain is being featured in another starring role, you’re gonna want the best, cleanest flavor you can get. 

What Makes Great Rice

Yes, white rice makes a beautiful blank canvas for all sorts of meals, but just like whatever you’re topping it with or serving it alongside, you want it to taste fresh and delicious. In the case of instant/microwaveable rice, that means it shouldn’t taste like it was cooped up for a long time in its package, even if it was. Cook time convenience shouldn’t cancel out flavor.

Rice should be moist without being overly wet, and fluff nicely with a fork. The aroma should be slightly sweet with the appropriate floral or nutty notes, depending on the variety. And it should be enjoyable to eat, resisting the temptation to clump together in a mushy glob while chewing. 

How I Tested the Instant Rice

Each product was cooked in the microwave according to the package directions and eaten at a hot temperature to be sure the quality was there. As the samples cooled off, they were tried again for comparison, since no dinner plate stays piping hot throughout the entire meal.

Whenever possible, a product labeled “white rice” was chosen. If not available, whatever white rice grain offered was purchased, resulting in some offerings of jasmine and some of basmati. While not identical grains, jasmine and basmati can be used interchangeably when cooking and their subtle differences in aroma, texture, and flavor did not affect the findings of this ranking. 

The Best Instant Rice, Ranked

10. Tasty Bite Organic Basmati Rice

The bright yellow package of Tasty Bite is hard and seems vacuum packed. It also promises “restaurant style authentic awesome Indian.” Restaurant style, in this case is likely referring to the additional oil used in the product, which actually might be working against it. Either the oil they used was bad or the whole package was, because the aroma coming out of the container is strong. And not in an enticing way, more in a “this rice has spoiled” way. In an effort to be fair to understandable shipping conditions, I bought a second package and my findings were the same (though it’s likely they were from the same shipment). I can’t comment on anything else about Tasty Bite because I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. So, in last it goes.

9. Mahatma Jasmine Rice

This purple pouch contains rice seasoned with sea salt, and after sampling 10 options I can tell you’d be better off finding a no-salt-added packet and seasoning the rice on your own. The rice fluffs nicely once cooked, but it commits the sin of revealing that it had been packaged a long time when you take a bite. It’s salty and sour and gets really bitter at the end, so this one wouldn’t be my choice for a return encounter.

8. Minute Jasmine Rice 

Minute brand offers easy-to-make rice in a variety of forms. For this test, I went with the most convenient—the 1 minute microwavable cup. All you have to do is take the film on top off and into the microwave it goes. The trouble with the cup comes once it’s cooked. The rice remains in quite the clump. If your goal is to plate your meal like in the 1980s or 90s, when it was common to sprinkle the rims of plates with parsley and served rice in a molded mound, this is a great choice. Just plunk the cup over and there you have it.

Taste-wise, it’s a bit rough. Pre-seasoned rice sitting in a cup for who knows how long has a hard time tasting fresh, so it’s a pass from me. The box version seems to offer a fluffier texture that surely tastes better too, but it will take longer to prepare.

7. Royal White Basmati Rice

Another pouch, Royal rice fluffs pleasantly once cooked. The taste is less impressive, prompting responses like “Oh, I don’t like that” from my family. It reads stale and salty and there’s a musty quality right up front, as if greeting your tongue with “Hi! I’m rice that’s been in a bag!” There’s also notes of sweet and sour that aren’t enjoyable, so my preference would also be to leave this one on the shelf.

6. Kroger 90-Second Jasmine Rice

Kroger’s microwave pouch yields a rice that sticks together much more than other brands. The flavor is enjoyable, but the texture is odd. Gloopy and “mashed potato-like” are descriptions that come to mind. But depending on the intended use, this wouldn’t be a bad choice in a pinch when it comes to taste.

5. Veetee Steam Filtered Perfectly Fluffy Basmati Rice

Veetee comes in a unique and attractive package. Puncture the top film with a fork, microwave 2 minutes, and viola! You have ready-to-eat rice. But since you can’t massage the rice apart pre-microwave trip like the brands that come in pouches, the rice holds together in chunks, with a pretty firm layer on top. The “perfectly fluffy” text on the package clearly doesn’t describe the physical appearance, but more the texture in the mouth, which is, surprisingly, quite fluffy. With a bunch of butter or any sauce from a dish, this would be excellent.  

4. Success Boil-in-a-Bag White Rice

The cooking method for this boil-in-a-bag rice was quite different from all the others. You add one bag to a large bowl, cover it with 4 cups water, then microwave 10 minutes—much longer than all the rest. It swathed my microwave in steam (might be a starch-laden steam, because: rice, but still) if you have some caked on food you want to get off, this might be a bonus!

Sure, it’s pretty off-putting to pull this bag out and watch murky water drain out of it before you eat it, but you’ll forget all about that once you start eating. It fluffs shockingly well for rice that was sitting in water moments before and it tastes great. The ingredient list is bold enough to boast just one thing: rice, and for $1.99 for four large pouches, it’s a BARGAIN. Success was, actually, well, successful. 

3. Simple Truth Organic Basmati Rice

To put it simply, Simple Truth is delicious. It has a beautiful texture and the flavor is subtle, balanced, and would elevate any dish. I’m just not sure if it’s really an even thing to rank, since it uses the extra seasonings of cloves and green cardamom and does so in such a wonderful way it feels like an unfair advantage. For this reason, and because one might not want this flavor all the time, I’m placing it third. 

2. Ben’s Original Ready Rice Jasmine

I’m not sure if this orange pouch was the first ready-in-90-seconds pouch of rice, but it was the first one I was aware of. And the original proves it knows what it’s doing. It fluffs up pretty with a fork and it tastes moist without being overly wet or sticky. There’s even a buttery-ness to it, thanks to the canola or sunflower oil, without the oil altering the flavor of the rice. And with the amount of flavor varieties Ben’s offers, you really can’t go wrong.

1. Trader Joe’s Organic Jasmine Rice

Trader Joe’s is the brand I usually have around my house, simply because the packages store nicely in my freezer, heat up well in 3 minutes, and have rice as the only ingredient in the bag. That said, I didn’t expect it to win.

Tasting 9 other instant rice brands gave me a new appreciation for good ol’ Joe, though. This rice is always fluffy and tastes beautifully clean. It is a little wet right out of the microwave, but that absorbs pretty quickly and gifts the rice with an almost juicy quality when you chew it. It’s everything you could want in rice: great texture, great flavor, and a lovely soft chew that still lets you taste the individual grains instead of a clump.