Uncooked to Cooked Rice Calculator

By volume, 1 cup of dry white or brown rice makes about 3 cups cooked (wild rice closer to 3½); by weight, white rice ends up roughly 2.8 times heavier after cooking, brown about 3 times, and wild about 3.5 times.

How the Conversion Works

Rice grows because the grain soaks up water, and water adds weight but no calories. That gives a neat way to measure the weight gain from published nutrition data: divide the calories in 100 g of dry rice by the calories in 100 g of the same rice cooked. Using USDA FoodData Central values, long-grain white rice goes from 365 to 130 kcal per 100 g (a factor of 2.81), medium-grain white from 360 to 130 (2.77), long-grain brown from 370 to 123 (3.01), and wild rice from 357 to 101 (3.53). Those are the weight multipliers this calculator uses.

For cups, it uses the volume yields published by extension services and growers: about 3 cups cooked per cup of dry white or brown rice (University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension, University of Maryland Extension) and 3 to 4 cups for wild rice (Minnesota Cultivated Wild Rice Council), taken here as 3½. A dry cup of rice weighs about 185 g for long-grain white or brown, 195 g for medium-grain, and 160 g for wild rice, per USDA portion data. Servings follow USDA MyPlate, where ½ cup of cooked rice counts as one ounce-equivalent of grains.

Worked Example: 1 Cup of Long-Grain White Rice

One dry cup weighs about 185 g. Multiplying by 2.81 gives roughly 519 g (18.3 oz) of cooked rice, which fills about 3 cups — six half-cup servings. You'd cook it in 1¾ to 2 cups of water. Working backward is just as useful: if a recipe calls for 4 cups of cooked brown rice, divide by 3 to get about 1⅓ cups (roughly 247 g) of dry rice to start with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why don't grams and cups expand by exactly the same amount? Cooked grains pack into a cup differently from dry ones, so a cup of cooked rice weighs less than you might expect from the dry weight alone. The weight figure is the more precise one; the cup figure is a practical kitchen estimate.

Where are jasmine and basmati? USDA doesn't publish separate cooking data for them, so they're grouped with long-grain white rice. Aromatic rices are often cooked with a little less water than plain long-grain, so check the package if your rice comes out soft.

Does the water amount change the yield? Somewhat. More water or a longer simmer makes softer, heavier rice, so treat every figure here as a typical result rather than a guarantee.

Limitations

Yields vary with the brand, the age of the rice, rinsing, cooking method (absorption vs. boiling and draining), and how long it rests. Parboiled and instant rice follow their own package directions and aren't covered here. For nutrition tracking, weighing cooked rice on a scale will always beat a cup measurement.