The Rice Recipe With Half the Calories You've Been Waiting For

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Clik here to view.Oh rice. You come in so many wonderful varieties, and you're the perfect compliment to so many different foods. Alas, rice is also so very starchy, and that starch converts into sugar, which is no good for your body at all. Well guess what? We just learned a way to cook rice that cuts the calories way back and even makes it more nutritious.

The key is to cook it with a little bit of oil, and then to let it cool for 12 hours before eating it. No joke, that's it -- and you could reduce the calories by as much as 50 percent!

"What we did is cook the rice as you normally do, but when the water is boiling, before adding the raw rice, we added coconut oil — about 3 percent of the weight of the rice you're going to cook," said Sudhair James, the Sri Lankan student who created the method. "After it was ready, we let it cool in the refrigerator for about 12 hours. That's it."

James' method converts the starch in rice from "digestible," which is the kind your body likes to store immediately around your waistline, into "resistant," which is the kind that takes longer to digest and doesn't turn into body fat quite so quickly. This resistant starch is the same kind you get from potatoes, by the way. So viva la potato.

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But what you want is the recipe, yes? Here you go.

Healthier Rice

1. Bring water to a boil and add coconut oil. Stir, pour in rice and salt, and stir again. Cover and cook on low for the usual amount of time (20-30 minutes depending on variety).

2. When just done, remove from heat and immediately place in refrigerator for at least 12 hours. Before serving, sprinkle with water and reheat.

For best results, since rice often reheats into gravel, I recommend cooking until just barely done and then adding a little bit of water before reheating. That will steam it back to life. You can keep that rice in the refrigerator for longer than 12 hours -- that's just the minimum. And of course you can use this idea to adapt your favorite recipes, like Chipotle cilantro lime rice (before you pour in the water, add coconut oil and bring it to a boil).

So enjoy your healthier rice. You'll love that's it's a make-ahead dish, and no one will ever know the difference.

Does this make you likely to eat more rice in the future? Do you think you'll go through the trouble for this version?

Image via Elena Veselova/Shutterstock

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.