Rice Conversions: Dry to Cooked, Cups to Grams, and Water Ratios

One cup of dry white rice is 185 g and cooks up to about three cups. Here are the conversions, water ratios and serving sizes.

Rice is measured dry but eaten cooked, and it roughly triples in the middle. That single fact is behind most rice confusion — a recipe calling for "two cups of rice" means something very different depending on which end it is talking about.

Rice by the cup

Rice — Grams per cup

White rice (uncooked) — 185 g

Brown rice (uncooked) — 190 g

White rice (cooked) — 186 g

That third row looks like a mistake and is not. A cup of cooked rice weighs about the same as a cup of raw rice — but most of that weight is now water. There is roughly a third as much actual rice in it.

Dry to cooked

One cup of dry long-grain white rice — 185 g — produces about three cups of cooked rice, weighing somewhere around 550 g. The rice absorbs roughly twice its own weight in water.

Dry rice — Approximate cooked yield — Serves as a side

½ cup (93 g) — 1½ cups — 1–2

1 cup (185 g) — 3 cups — 3–4

1½ cups (278 g) — 4½ cups — 5–6

2 cups (370 g) — 6 cups — 6–8

Brown rice expands a little less because the bran layer limits absorption, giving roughly two and a half to three cups per dry cup.

Read the recipe carefully. "Two cups of cooked rice" for a fried rice or a stuffed pepper means you need about ⅔ cup dry. Cooking two dry cups gives you three times what the recipe wanted.

For the water itself, the rice to water ratio calculator works it out by rice type and amount. Pasta grows in the same way: the dry to cooked pasta converter works by shape, and cooked pasta grams to cups converts a cooked weight to cups. Porridge absorbs even more water than rice; cooked oatmeal grams to cups gives the cooked cup weight.

Portion sizes

Side dish: 60–75 g dry rice per person, about ⅓ cup.

Main component: 90–100 g dry per person, about ½ cup.

Risotto: 75–90 g dry arborio per person — it feels like more because of the liquid and cheese.

Rice salad: 60 g dry per person, since it is usually one of several elements.

For a family of four having rice as a side, one cup dry is right. For rice as the centre of the meal, use one and a half to two.

Water ratios

The common starting point for long-grain white rice cooked by absorption is two parts water to one part rice by volume. By weight that works out at roughly 1.5 parts water to 1 part rice, because water is denser than dry rice.

Different rices want different amounts:

Long-grain white — 2:1 by volume, sometimes 1.75:1 for a firmer result

Basmati — 1.5:1 after rinsing, since it is a drier grain and rinsing leaves some water behind

Jasmine — 1.5:1 to 1.75:1; it is softer and stickier by nature

Brown rice — 2.5:1 and around twice the cooking time, because the bran resists water

Short-grain and sushi rice — around 1.1:1 after a thorough rinse and a soak

Rinsing matters more than most people think. Washing until the water runs mostly clear removes surface starch, which is the difference between separate grains and a gluey mass. For sushi rice, where you want some stickiness, you still rinse — the stickiness comes from the grain itself, not surface starch.

The rice-cooker cup is not a cup

Rice cookers come with a plastic measuring cup, and it is not a US cup. It is a Japanese gō: 180 ml, about 76% of a US cup.

The water lines inside the cooker's bowl are calibrated to that cup. If you measure rice with a US cup and fill the water to the marked line, you will get it wrong.

Use the cup that came with the cooker, or ignore the lines entirely and measure both rice and water yourself.

Weighing beats measuring here too

Rice varies in grain size and moisture, so a cup of one rice is not a cup of another. Weighing removes the variable, and it makes ratios trivial: 200 g of rice with 300 g of water is a 1.5:1 ratio you can reproduce exactly every time.

It also makes portioning easy. 75 g per person, times however many people, and there is no leftover-rice arithmetic.

For the conversions themselves, the white rice page has a full table, the cups to millilitres converter handles the water side, and the universal converter covers any amount in any unit.

Frequently asked questions

How many grams is a cup of uncooked rice?

About 185 g for white long-grain rice and 190 g for brown rice. Cooked white rice is about 158 g per cup, but a cup of cooked rice contains far less actual rice because of the absorbed water.

How much does 1 cup of dry rice make cooked?

About three cups of cooked rice for white long-grain. Brown rice expands slightly less, at roughly two and a half to three cups.

How many grams of dry rice per person?

About 60–75 g of dry rice per person as a side dish, or 90–100 g as the main component of a meal.

What is the water ratio for white rice?

Two parts water to one part rice by volume is the common starting point for long-grain white rice cooked by absorption. By weight that is roughly 1.5 parts water to 1 part rice.

How many grams is 100 g of rice cooked?

Around 250–300 g, since rice roughly triples in weight as it absorbs water. The exact figure depends on the variety and how much water it took up.