Rice

Uncooked rice can contain spores that can survive cooking, so we need to take extra care when cooling and storing it to avoid food poisoning.

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Storing cooked rice Reheating Takeaway rice Freezing

Uncooked rice can contain spores of a bacterium called Bacillus cereus. This bacteria can cause food poisoning. Its spores can survive being cooked, which is why you need to take extra care when cooling and storing cooked rice.

Storing cooked rice

It’s safe to eat cold cooked rice if it has cooled down quickly, stored in the fridge and eaten within 24 hours.

To store cooked rice safely:

chill it as quickly as possible, ideally within one hour
take it out of the rice cooker, steamer or pan to cool it down faster
consider dividing it into smaller portions to cool it down faster
once at room temperature, put it straight into the fridge
don’t store it for longer than 24 hours before eating

Fact

The longer cooked rice takes to cool and is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria will produce a toxin that will make it unsafe to eat

Reheating rice

It’s safe to eat reheated rice as long as:

it hasn’t been kept in the fridge for longer than 24 hours
it was cooled quickly after cooking
it’s steaming hot all the way through once heated
it hasn’t been reheated more than once

Takeaway rice

Some food businesses might cook their rice and serve it to customers immediately. But others might precook and reheat it before serving. This means it can be hard to tell whether takeaway rice is safe to reheat or not.

Top tip

To avoid waste, when ordering a takeaway check how much rice comes with each serving to make sure you order the right amount

If you’re not sure how takeaway rice has been cooked, stored and handled, it’s best not to reheat it.

If you want to store and reheat leftovers, check with the food business how they prepared and stored their rice.

Freezing rice

Before freezing rice, follow the steps above to cool it down for storage as quickly as possible, ideally within one hour.

Once it’s cooled down to room temperature, store in the freezer in an airtight container.

To prepare it to eat, defrost it in the fridge. Reheat until it’s steaming hot all the way through, and serve immediately.