The most effective way to remove starch from rice is to boil it in a large volume of water (roughly 6 cups per 1 cup of rice) and then drain the starchy water before serving. This excess-water method draws soluble starch out of the grain and discards it, reducing the amount of digestible starch you actually eat. Rinsing, soaking, and cooling rice after cooking can also help, though each method works differently and comes with trade-offs worth understanding.
Why Rice Has So Much Starch
Rice is roughly 80% starch by dry weight. That starch comes in two forms: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is a straight-chain molecule that resists digestion somewhat and makes rice cook up firm and separate. Amylopectin is a highly branched molecule that gelatinizes easily, creating sticky, soft textures. Long-grain varieties like basmati tend to have higher amylose content (around 20-25%), while short-grain and sticky rice varieties can have amylose levels below 5%, meaning they’re almost entirely amylopectin.
This ratio matters because amylopectin is digested quickly, causing a faster rise in blood sugar. If your goal is to reduce the glycemic impact of rice, you want to either remove starch altogether or convert some of it into a form your body digests more slowly.
The Excess Water (Boil and Drain) Method
This is the single most effective cooking method for pulling starch out of rice. Instead of using the standard absorption method where rice soaks up all the water, you boil the rice in far more water than it can absorb, then pour off the cloudy, starch-laden liquid.
Here’s how to do it:
- Ratio: Use about 6 cups of water per 1 cup of rice.
- Boil: Bring the water to a rolling boil, add the rice, and cook until the grains are tender (12-15 minutes for white rice, longer for brown).
- Drain: Pour the rice through a fine strainer or colander and let it sit for 1-2 minutes so all the starchy water drains away.
- Fluff and serve: Return the rice to the pot off the heat, cover it briefly, then fluff with a fork.
The milky water you pour off contains dissolved starch, along with some other water-soluble compounds. This method is widely used in South Asian cooking, where it’s sometimes called the “draining method” or “pasta method” for rice.
Does Rinsing Rice Actually Remove Starch?
Rinsing is probably the most common advice you’ll find, but the reality is more nuanced than most sources suggest. Washing rice before cooking removes the loose, powdery starch on the grain’s surface, which is a byproduct of milling. It also removes dust and surface lipids (fats that can cause off-flavors over time).
However, a study published in Food Chemistry found that washing rice before cooking has no statistically significant effect on the hardness or stickiness of the cooked grain. The washing procedure mainly removes free starch produced during milling and doesn’t change the internal structure of the rice kernel. So while rinsing cleans the rice and can reduce the cloudiness of your cooking water, it doesn’t meaningfully reduce the total starch content of what you eat.
That said, rinsing is still a good habit. It removes 60-80% of surface lipids, which helps prevent rancid flavors, and it produces cleaner-tasting rice. Just don’t expect it to make a significant dent in starch or blood sugar impact on its own.
Soaking Before Cooking
Soaking rice for 30 minutes to several hours before cooking allows some surface starch to leach into the soaking water. The key is to discard the soaking water and cook with fresh water afterward. If you soak and then cook in the same water, the dissolved starch simply gets reabsorbed.
Soaking works best as a complement to the boil-and-drain method rather than a standalone technique. It softens the grain, which can shorten cooking time, and it gives starch a head start on dissolving before heat is even applied. Research on modified cooking techniques that combine soaking with specific preparation methods has shown glycemic index reductions of around 9% compared to conventionally cooked rice.
Cooling Rice to Create Resistant Starch
This method doesn’t remove starch from the rice. Instead, it converts some of the digestible starch into resistant starch, a form that passes through your small intestine without being fully broken down. Your body treats resistant starch more like fiber than like a simple carbohydrate, so it has a smaller effect on blood sugar.
The process is straightforward: cook rice normally, then let it cool. When cooked starch cools, some of the amylose molecules realign into tight, crystalline structures that digestive enzymes can’t easily access. The longer and colder the cooling period, the more resistant starch forms. Rice cooled for 10 hours at room temperature roughly doubled its resistant starch content (from 0.64 g to 1.30 g per 100 g). Rice refrigerated at 4°C for 24 hours increased it even further, to 1.65 g per 100 g. Reheating the rice after refrigeration doesn’t fully reverse this conversion, so you can cool rice overnight, then warm it up the next day and still retain the benefit.
The absolute numbers are modest. You’re going from less than 1% resistant starch to about 1.5%. But for people managing blood sugar over many meals, this incremental shift adds up, especially when combined with the boil-and-drain method.
Nutrient Trade-offs to Consider
Removing starch from rice isn’t free of downsides. When you boil rice in excess water and drain it, water-soluble nutrients leave with the starch. For enriched white rice (the kind most commonly sold in the U.S. and many other countries), cooking in excess water reduces iron, folate, niacin, and thiamin by 50-70%. These nutrients are sprayed onto the grain surface during the enrichment process, so they dissolve easily.
Brown rice is affected significantly less, because its nutrients are embedded in the bran layer rather than sitting on the surface. If you regularly use the boil-and-drain method, choosing brown rice or unenriched varieties helps preserve more of your nutritional intake. You can also compensate by eating a variety of other whole grains, legumes, and vegetables that provide the same B vitamins and minerals.
One genuine upside of the excess-water method: it also reduces arsenic levels in the cooked grain. Rice absorbs inorganic arsenic from soil and water, and boiling in a large volume of water allows some of that arsenic to leach out. Rinsing alone has minimal effect on arsenic content.
Which Method Works Best for You
Your best approach depends on why you want to reduce starch in the first place:
- For blood sugar management: Use the boil-and-drain method with a long-grain, high-amylose variety like basmati. Then refrigerate leftovers overnight and reheat. This stacks multiple starch-reduction strategies together.
- For less sticky rice: Rinsing 2-3 times in cold water removes enough surface starch to keep grains from clumping. That’s all you need.
- For lower calorie intake: The boil-and-drain method reduces the total digestible starch per serving, which effectively lowers the usable calories. Pair it with vegetables, protein, or healthy fats to slow digestion further.
- For arsenic concerns: Boil in excess water and drain. This addresses both starch and arsenic in one step.
No single technique eliminates all the starch in rice. Even the most aggressive preparation still leaves most of the grain’s internal starch intact. But combining methods, choosing high-amylose varieties, and adjusting how you cool and reheat can meaningfully change how your body processes the starch that remains.