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Eating healthy is important, but everyone has days where they’re just too busy or too tired to plan out a balanced meal, let along think about cooking with whole grains. What’s a person with a life to do? Instead of running out to McDonald’s or ordering in pizza for the third night in a row, here’s a tip that can save not only your health, but a few pennies from the coffers of the restaurant gods.
Why Cook with Whole Grains?
Whole grains are super important to your everyday health, since they keep your blood sugar humming along at a happy level and contain enough fiber to prevent your digestive system from getting all wonky. When you’re in a hurry rice can seem like the perfect quick meal, but before you grab that bag of Uncle Ben’s, think about what those whitewashed grains are doing to your body.
For those that don’t know, white grains were once whole grains. They were put through a refining process that removed all of the healthy, fibrous coating from each individual grain. That coating contained all the fiber and nutrients necessary to make the grain itself healthy to eat. Once grains have had that coating removed, they essentially turn into sugars that bomb your endocrine system with unchecked glucose — and in turn, causes a spike in your blood sugar levels.
Eating refined grains, such as white rice, can contribute to a series of health problems such as obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome and a host of other unsavory conditions. While eating white rice is healthier than chowing down a Snickers, it’s not that much healthier. Why go on a major carb-loading bender if the carbs you’re scarfing don’t have any nutritional value?
On the other hand, whole grains are a total pain in the ass to prepare on-the-fly. They take longer to cook than white grains and when you’re busy, you probably don’t want to wait an hour and a half for dinner. Thankfully, modern electronic science has bestowed upon us the ultimate in kitchen convenience: the rice cooker.
Tips for Cooking with Whole Grains
With a rice cooker you can literally flip the thing on and walk away. But again, it still takes a long time to prepare whole grains, and unless you get home at like 4:30 in the afternoon, you probably won’t have time to get them started in time for dinner. Here at Chez Wasabimon, we have a trick for cooking with whole grains. On Sunday night I stick four cups of brown rice in the rice cooker, and once it’s done I fill up Tupperware containers and store them in the fridge. Now I’ve got brown rice to last me all week and I can literally eat healthy on a moments notice. Toss it into stir-fries, casseroles or just plain eat it on the side.
Your Friend, the Freezer
Here’s another good grain tip — did you know that rice freezes beautifully? If you want to store your rice for longer than a few days, or if you want to make up a ridiculously huge amount to store into perpetuity, add 10% less water when you cook the rice to keep it a little firmer. Once it’s done spread the grains out in a thin layer on a cookie sheet to cool, then stick the rice in a zip-top bags and store in the freezer for up to six months. Voilà! Dinner forever!
What’s your favorite tip for cooking with whole grains?
PS: Did you know that dark chocolate can help reduce your risk of heart attack?
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s my whole grain dirty little secret: Success brown rice boil-in bags. Only takes 10 minutes to cook, but nutritionally it’s pretty darn close to from-scratch. When I have time I make my own, but some nights (like last night) boiling a bag saves my butt.
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Ooo, and another one: Whole wheat couscous! Ready in five minutes!
Only whole grains should be sold in shops!
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Debbie, I worry about the plastic bags that rice is cooked in, that chemicals leach into the rice. Stephanie, thanks for this useful post. I have gotten lazy about cooking whole grain rice and now will make it again thanks to your tips. How about a glass container, instead of Tupperware?
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my rice cooker is a lifesaver…makes things so easy. I also use it to reheat the rice the next day – by adding some more water I think it’s 1/4 c. to each cup of rice (?) and it comes out like just-cooked rice. I’m trying to get my family to prefer brown rice to white, as I do. One way I did this: Instead of all water, I substitute about 1/3 of a cup with some apple cider – the rice takes on a bit of a sweeter flavor and is delish!
Never knew about freezing rice. Thanks Steph, that will be a help.
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We eat whole grains most of the time. You can make brown rice mush in 10 minutes by pulverizing the rice for 2 minutes and then cooking it for about 10 with water. My kids LOVE this, we call it “rice mush.” My husband HATES it but he dislikes rice in general, brown rice or white rice.
In almost any recipe (and I’ve had luck with this in Debbie’s recipes–she commented above–on her awesome site) you can substitute whole spelt flour or whole wheat flour for some or all of the white flour. It adds tons of nutritional value without changing the flavor enough for anyone to notice.
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I am a lover of white sticky rice. I admit it. Even so, I have it kind of rarely, and am working on incorporating more whole grains into my family’s diet. In fact, last night I made whole (unpearled) barley in my rice cooker – turned out great!
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I really appreciate this post. I love whole grains but sometimes forget to make them. Even Trader Joe’s has brown rice in the microwaveable bags. You know what? I having some for lunch!
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I don’t have a rice cooker. We’re big couscous fans here. How long does it take to cook brown rice in a cooker?
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I’m trying to learn to like brown rice. I love whole wheat in any form, but brown rice always seems so dry. I’m going to try your suggestion and make it, freeze some. I also like the idea of adding apple cider into the cooking liquid.
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I usually cook half brown rice/ half unpearled barley in the rice cooker, and then keep that in the refrigerator for a week. More than a week and it gets too dry. I’ll have to try the freezing idea- never thought of that.
Also, each week I put 1/2 cup unpearled barley and 1/2 cup steel cut oats in one of the tiny 1 qt crock pots, add a quart of almond milk and cook on low for about 6 hours. Sometimes I will add barley malt as a sweetener, this week I added sorghum syrup. I keep it in the refrigerator and eat 1/4 of it a day for breakfast with whatever fruit is in season or in the freezer. (While I like the texture of the whole barley, sometimes I want a creamier breakfast. I’d like to have steel cut barley as well, but can’t find a source anywhere. This week I experimented with running the barley through a coffee grinder, before cooking and I was pleased with the results.) Hint- don’t do this overnight the first couple of times- it can burn to the sides of the crock if left overlong, and it took me a while to determine the correct timing.
I only eat brown rice at home. I have a rice cooker too so it’s not a big deal for me to make it. Sometimes to make sure it’s moist, I add more water than what I might for regular white rice. What other whole grains do you like to cook with? I want to expand beyond brown rice because I heard brown rice is the least healthy of the whole grains.
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I love brown rice a lot. One of my favorites is sweet brown rice, which is glutinous rice in whole grain form. It is stickier than regular brown rice so it makes great “onigiri” or Japanese rice balls (actually triangle shaped). If you moisten your hands with water and then sprinkle a little salt on them while rolling the balls they make a great, portable, kid-friendly snack!
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