Storing Cooked Rice

kitchenwitch

kitchenwitch

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I've been making batches of brown rice and eating it over the course of a few days, and I never noticed that there was anything off about it. When my friend who works in food service found out though she immediately advised me to stop eating cooked rice that has been stored in the fridge.

Apparently the bacteria that causes food poisoning can be found in rice and survive the cooking process, so it's risky to store because it can thrive in a too-warm environment after being cooked. When I have leftover rice from dinner I usually leave it on the stove for an hour or so while we're eating and cleaning up so I'm a little worried I've been setting us all up to get sick.

I Googled it and came up with conflicting reports, but I've never had an issue and I'm kind of surprised I've never even heard about this before. Is it something you look out for? I feel like I've missed out on some common knowledge.
 
It's customary to make fried rice with rice that's 2-3 days old, and I always keep cooked rice in the fridge for that long, then fry it up, and keep it even longer. I've never had an issue with it. When you say a too-warm environment, do you mean leaving it sit around after you cook it, before refrigerating? There are plenty of restaurants that leave buffet food, including fried rice and other rice dishes sitting around, so I'm not sure about the validity of her information. Not that I would ordinarily cite buffet food as healthy, but I think sitting on your stove for an hour before packing it up and refrigerating would be fine.
 
I've never had an issue with it either - we usually cook rice in fairly large batches and then just put it in a Tupperware container straight into the fridge. Similar to you @Diane Lane we also make fried rice with leftover rice and then it's kept for another few days in the fridge too and no ill effects as yet.

Sometimes I think a lot of warnings are based on a "worst case" scenario and thankfully I haven't gotten there yet!
 
We store leftover cooked rice in the fridge. We have been doing that for more than 20 years now. The trick in cooked rice is to be aware of the rice cooker's lid. When you lift the lid, there is moist and sometimes too much water. So when we take off the lid, we make sure that the rice would not be wet with the lid's water. That water leads to contamination, take note of that. Even when you keep it in the fridge, a wet rice will be spoiled. Sometimes it happens to us - spoiled cooked rice simply because the maid was not careful in taking off the lid of the rice cooker.
 
Corzhens said:
We store leftover cooked rice in the fridge. We have been doing that for more than 20 years now. The trick in cooked rice is to be aware of the rice cooker's lid. When you lift the lid, there is moist and sometimes too much water. So when we take off the lid, we make sure that the rice would not be wet with the lid's water. That water leads to contamination, take note of that. Even when you keep it in the fridge, a wet rice will be spoiled. Sometimes it happens to us - spoiled cooked rice simply because the maid was not careful in taking off the lid of the rice cooker.
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I think if you have been storing it in the fridge for 20 years I am comfortable to keep doing it that way! :woot:
 
kitchenwitch said:
I Googled it and came up with conflicting reports, but I've never had an issue and I'm kind of surprised I've never even heard about this before. Is it something you look out for? I feel like I've missed out on some common knowledge.
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Well all the best there with Google and the conflicting views. Recently I don't want to scare you but right here I heard brown rice had some Arsenic connections. There I was thinking I should try to get into brown rice and then ChanellG talks about arsenic right here in this forum. By the way, I was here planning to use some white rice I have in the fridge for lunch and might still use it anyway. Sometimes you have to take these findings with a pinch of salt.
 
My mother always store our leftover cooked rice in the fridge and I inherited it that way now that I had my own family already. So far she is 83 years old already and still very healthy and can still cook for all of us during weekends our family bonding together. And in that span of long years so far we had not encountered any food contamination . Maybe it depends on how the rice is prepared, cooked and handled. Sometimes we should not be scared at once to what we had seen or heard. You have to believe on your own judgement and experiences that makes your way of life comfortable.
 
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We have always stored leftover rice in the fridge and have never had a problem. I did hear about the bacteria but I have never experienced it. Lots of people do it that way and I have never heard of anybody ever getting sick from left over rice. It may happen in places where they don't have adequate refrigeration.
 
I believe this topic has come up before. It is certainly true that keeping cooked rice can be dangerous. I know this aspect is covered in Health and Hygiene training for chefs and caterers as I had a friend who had to gain a Food Hygiene certificate for his catering business at Glastonbury Festival. I think @Berties gave us all the definitive answer in another thread, and being a professional chef, he should know!
 
Rice is a staple in our household and there are times that we do have leftover rice after meals. We do not dispose the leftover rice; what we cannot consume, we store in it the fridge. It doesn't really get spoiled easily. We use the leftover for garlic fried rice or sometimes we just microwave it and it comes out just fine.
 
I do not cook a batch and consume in the course of a few days. That sounds unsafe to me unless you store the rest on the fridge until you are ready to use it again. Usually the remaining batch will be cooked as fried rice because a day old rice in the cold storage would make a nice fluffy fried rice.
 
Well I feel a lot better after seeing all these replies :) I always store leftover rice in the fridge and it's typically not out at room temperature for too long, so it sounds like I'm safe! I've made a couple mistakes with food storage in the past so I guess I'm a little paranoid about it now. I kind of started teaching myself all this stuff once I moved out, so it's definitely still a learning process and it's great to be able to get feedback from people who have more experience than me!
 
I have been cooking and storing rice for a few years with no problems. I would think it is more to do with rice stored at room temperture than in the refrig.
 
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