Even if you’re a skilled home chef, you might have difficulty knowing how much rice to serve per person for your dinner party or party.
The main problem is determining the amount of rice to cook. Since rice expands quite a bit when cooking, you could severely over estimate if you just eyeball the look of the rice. No one wants to end up with not enough or way too much food that will have to be thrown out.
Recommended Amount Of Cooked Rice Per Meal
To determine how much rice per person, you need to know how much rice is a typical individual serving. A typical serving size of rice is between 1/2 and 1 full cup of cooked rice. That leads to a large range, however. If you plan for 1/2 a cup per person for 20 people that’s 10 cups of cooked rice. However, if you go for 1 cup per person, it’s 20 cups of rice.
One of the best ways to narrow in on the proper amount is to decide whether you will serve it as a side dish or as a main dish before you start cooking.
For a side dish, being served along with main dish proteins and other sides and appetizers, then 1/2 a cup per person is appropriate.
For a main dish, like chicken fried rice or a Thai curry, one cup per person is more appropriate.
How Much Uncooked Rice to Make?
We recommend making 50-65g of uncooked rice per person. If you have a kitchen scale, weigh the rice before cooking to make sure you’re using the correct amount. Eyeballing it can lead to making too much or too little.
One thing to be aware of is that the type of rice used can also affect this cooked amount. For example, long-grain rice makes 3 cups of cooked rice from 1 cup of uncooked rice, while brown rice makes 4 cups cooked from 1 cup uncooked. That doesn’t make it especially easy to know how many cups of rice per person from dried, but we’ve got a chart below that will help.
| Type of Rice (1 cup, uncooked) | Cooked |
|---|---|
| Long-grain white rice | 3 cups |
| Medium-grain white rice | 3 cups |
| Short-grain rice | 3 cups |
| Brown whole grain rice | 4 cups |
| Wild rice | 3 cups |
| Instant white rice | 2 cups |
| Sticky rice | 3 cups |
| Basmati rice | 3 cups |
| Jasmine rice | 3 cups |
Storing Leftover Rice
Even after all your planning and calculating, you might still over or under estimate the amount of rice to serve. If that happens and you’ve got left over rice, it’s easy to store it and it can be used for future dishes.
Left over rice should be cooled and stored in an air-tight container or Ziplock bag. If using a container, put the rice in and then put a piece of plastic wrap into the container, covering the rice, and push down on it to let any excess air out of the rice.
You can stored the rice in the fridge for two days or freeze it for up to one month. To reheat it, put it in a bowl with a little bit of water and microwave on high for 1 minute, or place it in a pan with already boiling water for 1 minute, then drain.
Leftover rice is great to use in dishes like Chicken Fried Rice, where the drier the rice the better. Freezing leftover rice can also be a quick way to get dinner ready, since you won’t have to make a fresh pot of rice each time.
Tips For Making Great Rice
Take advantage of the below tips to prepare delicious rice dishes that are perfect for a delightful meal.
- The water to rice ratio should be a little higher than 2:1 to get fluffy rice. In other words, 1 cup of rice should be cooked with about 1-3/4 cups of water.
- Adding chicken or beef broth to your rice dish will enhance its flavor. However, vegetarians should opt for vegetable stock instead. Alternatively, you can use chicken or beef broth instead of water if you don’t mind a non-vegetarian mixture in your diet.
Before You Go
Since you made it to the end of this article, you’re probably pretty interested in rice. Here are a few more articles we think you might enjoy.
- Easy Cilantro Lime Rice
- Instant Pot vs Rice Cooker: Which is Better?
- Instant Pot Basmati Rice – Perfectly Cooked
- Delicious Chicken Rice Soup
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Laura is a home cook, with 25 years experience behind the stove, who spends an extraordinary amount of time in the kitchen cooking. She loves making new recipes and finding wonderful new things to eat, both at home or abroad. She spends a lot of time researching, crafting, and perfecting her recipes.
Cups is NOT a measurement for solid weight but for liquid volume. Anyone who reads this, falsify this because has incorrect measurements. Plain and simple one serving of rice is 50g raw rice(yes, servings and calories are only measured raw, whatever you add as bonus eg olive oil 15 ml= 120 cal-which is the so called incorrectly measured tablespoon).
OK, calm down!! I think we all know that measuring by the gram is better and MUCH more accurate, a universal measurement, repeatable and unchangeable…….. but who mentioned olive oil or any other additives into the rice?! Take your olive oil and add it to 50g of rice and munch away in the corner lol
Hi Laura, l need to make Fried Rice for 12 people, how much rice do l cook? Thanks
Hi Eleanor. A typical serving or a main dish is 1 cup of rice, so 4 cups of uncooked rice will serve 12 people. However, I always like to make sure I have more than enough, so I would suggest making 6 cups of uncooked rice.
Eleanor, did you not read the article? The whole thing is about cooking rice If you look above where you have commented, you’ll see how much rice to cook for different amounts of people and even how much of different types of rice to cook
I “weight” the rice as you said, and it was perfect, much better than the spelling and grammar checking on the article
Just a typo. We’re all human after all. 🙂
I’m grateful for the tips and tricks shared here.
Do these serving sizes take into account leftovers?
The servings sizes here do not account for leftovers. But, since some people will eat a full serving and some won’t there could be some left over. If you are looking to have leftover rice then you may want to add an extra serving or two when you are planning.
I’m planning a large dinner party and was wondering if this serving size applies to all types of rice or just certain types?
Leticia, there is a great chart in the post about how much cooked rice you will get from each type of rice. That may help you out.
I will definitely be using this as a reference in the future.
This blog post was so helpful! I always end up making too much or too little rice. Thank you!
Happy to hear it Jenny!
I never realized how much rice I was over-serving until I read this post.
We thought the same thing!