5 Rice Brands To Buy, And 5 To Avoid

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Cooking rice allows you to create countless recipes from around the world. The grain is a component in international, hearty dishes like fried rice, risotto, sushi, paella, bibimbap, tahdig, biryani, and jambalaya. Of course, different rice recipes require different types of rice. The starch comes in multiple colors, including white, brown, or black, along with varieties, like basmati, jasmine, or arborio, and grain lengths that range from short to long. But if you already know what kind you want, but are still wondering which rice brand to buy, we've got you covered.

We recommend rice companies that are known for good-tasting products, with rice that has an excellent texture and flavor. Additionally, we suggest buying from brands that are less harmful to your health. This includes companies with rice that is organic, lack artificial preservatives, and are nutrient-rich. To us, it's a bonus if the brand is attempting to combat issues like climate change and give back employees, too.

On the other hand, some rice brands we recommend avoiding are those made for instant cooking. These products come in packaging that contains higher levels of microplastics, which are tiny plastic particles which may be harmful to your health, per The Brisbane Times. "Boil-in-bag" or microwavable rice products may also have fewer nutrients and more artificial preservatives in them, per Miss Vickie. The same goes for rice blends that come prepared with seasonings. Instant rice also often comes in single-use plastic containers which create waste. To find which rice brands we avoid or recommend, read on.

Success is a brand that produces "boil-in-bag" rice. This means that within each box, you'll find a bag filled with precooked grains. You submerge that bag in a pot of water and boil it, allowing the rice to completely cook within ten minutes. You can also do a version of this process in the microwave.

This method is meant to help save cooking time, reduce the number of tools used, and keep you from having to measure out water and rice — which is typically the trickiest part of cooking rice on the stove. You'll find that rather than compliment its taste, fans of Success say things like "very convenient and easy," because expediency is the motivator for buying Success products. However, we recommend avoiding this brand.

Although Success states that its products are BPA-free, this doesn't guarantee that all of the chemicals inside the boiling bag won't get into your food. Per Men's Health, these chemicals are all the more likely to move into your food once it's heated. It's similar to what happens when you leave a plastic water bottle in the sun (via Today). We wouldn't drink that, so why would we boil pre-cooked rice in a plastic bag? Although the concerns around "boil-in-bag" rice's chemical transfer are not completely known, we don't want to risk exposing ourselves to potentially harmful microplastics just to save a few minutes of cooking time. After all, cooking rice isn't that difficult and won't take much longer using more traditional methods.

Minute rice is another brand of instant rice. The company sells various boxes of rice, inside of which are precooked and dehydrated grains. The standard version of these grains doesn't come with a boil-in-bag feature. Instead, they are made for pouring directly into some water and reheating, either in the microwave or on the stovetop. It's a positive to us that you don't have to reheat this rice inside a plastic container. However, the brand still has downsides that make it one rice company we recommend avoiding.

Our main issue with this brand is that when Minute's rice products are pre-cooked, they lose much of the rice's nutrients. As Miss Vickie explains, a significant amount of the regular nutrients in white rice are lost in the pre-cooking and dehydrating process. Sometimes, pre-cooked kinds of rice like Minute's are enriched before packaging to add back lost nutrients. However, there is no mention of this enriching process on Minute's products or the brand's website. Additionally, some people think pre-cooked rice creates mushier, less defined rice kernels, per The Watering Mouth. Due to both the loss of nutrients and the quality of Minute's rice, our recommendation is to avoid this brand.

Ben's Original makes various rice products with expedited cooking processes. The company sells "boil-in-bag" rice, "instant" pre-cooked rice, and a line of products called "Ready Rice." While several of the items sold by Ben's Original all go by different names, they all have downsides.

The "boil-in-bag" products sold by Ben's Original concern us because they require cooking rice within a plastic bag, whether on the stovetop or in the microwave. This process potentially exposes us to microplastics and other potentially harmful components. According to a study published by Science Direct, there may be four times as many microplastics found in instant rice. This is concerning because microplastics could potentially cause respiratory or cardiovascular issues (via Yale Sustainability).

As for the "fast-cook rice" from Ben's Original, this variety is pre-cooked, meaning it may lose some nutrients in the boiling process. While some of these instant rice products made by Ben's Original (like its Long Grain White Rice) are enriched to add back lost vitamins and minerals, others (like the brand's Whole Grain Brown Rice) are not. This inconsistency makes it confusing to find nutritious products from this brand. Finally, the line of Ready Rice products from Ben's Original is both made for heating within plastic containers and has additional ingredients that we're not fans of. Added artificial and unnecessary items include things like canola oil, a seed oil which some view to be potentially harmful to health, via Healthline. Combined, these things give us plenty of reason to avoid this brand.

Annie Chun's is a food company that sells various readymade Asian dishes. In addition to rice products, it offers things like instant ramen, noodle bowls, and potstickers. Annie Chun's is primarily known for one kind of rice. This consists of microwavable medium-grain white rice that comes in bowl-shaped plastic containers. Although we admire the simplicity of this product, we don't recommend buying it.

First of all, this is a pre-cooked rice dish. This means it comes with fewer nutrients than uncooked rice. Second, Annie Chun's rice requires heating in a plastic container, potentially exposing buyers to harmful ingredients like BPA (bisphenol A). Per Mayo Clinic, this is unwanted because BPA has been traced to illnesses like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and high blood pressure. There is currently no guarantee on Annie Chun's website or product packaging that says its products do not contain BPA.

Furthermore, rice is not the sole ingredient in Annie Chun's microwavable product. It's packaged with water and gluconic acid. These ingredients are not necessarily harmful, but we prefer products that contain only rice. Finally, we dislike the amount of plastic waste created through microwavable rice products. We all know about plastic waste's negative impact on the world and the environment at this point, and buying microwavable containers like those used for Annie Chun's is not doing anything to help end this problem.

We don't recommend buying rice from Near East, a brand that produces a variety of boxed rice pilafs and blends. These flavored rice mixes can appear appetizing at first, with their additions of herbs and other seasonings seeming especially tasty. Also, these vegetal items even look somewhat healthy. Overall, the boxed rice mixes promise to be quicker to make than creating a pilaf from scratch.

In reviews on Amazon, ease of making is one of the most commonly mentioned compliments for this product. "Great tasting pilaf and easy to make. No rice cooker necessary, just follow microwave instructions on the side of the box," explains one Amazon reviewer who purchased items from Near East. "If I'm stuck, and in a hurry for a quick, easy side with great flavour, I just pull out a box of this," wrote another shopper. We don't doubt that this is easy to prepare. However, we have a few issues with the goods sold by this brand.

For one, they all contain additional ingredients. This is the case with Near East's original Rice Pilaf mix. Some of these unwanted ingredients are artificial, like with the flavoring agent autolyzed yeast extract. This ingredient is not necessarily harmful to our health, via Healthline. But we think it's unnecessary. Then, there are ingredients like wheat flour, which is frustrating because it adds gluten to a naturally gluten-free product that is rice. These are not the worst qualities for a food product to have, though there are simply better brands out there.