Rice flour is one of those relatively niche kitchen ingredients that not a lot of people really think of as important.
However, like with other types of flour, rice flour has a surprising number of uses in the kitchen, from creating wafer-thin coatings for making fried foods or tempura batter, or for adding a touch of crispiness to dough and cakes.
You don’t even have to buy it, either – with just a few simple steps, you can make your very own rice flour at home!
How Can I Use My Homemade Rice Flour?
Rice flour might not have gluten in it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use it in all kinds of recipes.
For starters, rice flour is principally used to make those super thin, delicate rice noodles to serve in your favorite Chinese or Japanese dish! Or you can use it as a thickening agent for any kind of soup or stew.
Plus, when you make it at home, it has a surprising amount of natural flavor in it thanks to the additional step of toasting the rice grains, giving anything you use it with a delicious, slightly sweet taste!
What Kind Of Special Equipment Do I Need To Make Rice Flour?
The great thing about making rice flour at home is that other than an oven that can maintain a low temperature or a dehydrator, you really only need a blender to help turn it into powder.
So long as you can thoroughly dehydrate your rice grains, and then blitz them into a powder, it is super simple to make rice flour any time you need it!
Ingredients
1 cup of white rice
How To Make Homemade Rice Flour
Step 1 – Weigh out your rice, and pour them out in a single layer on a baking sheet.
Step 2 – Dehydrate the rice grains in a low oven set to 150 Fahrenheit, or as low as your oven can go.
Optionally, if you have a dehydrator:
Step 3 – Arrange your rice grains on a rack in your dehydrator, and set it to “grains and pulses.”
Step 4 – Dry your rice until it is completely dry to the touch, with no residual moisture remaining.
Step 5 – Transfer your dried rice grains to a blender, and then blend on low speed, moving up to a medium speed, until everything has broken down into a powder.
Step 6 – Store your rice flour in a lidded container in a cupboard for up to 2 months.
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Troubleshooting Tips
• If you’re struggling to get your rice blended into a fine powder, you might need to vary up the speed at which you are blending the rice grains. Starting out at a low speed, progressing slowly up to a medium speed is best, as it avoids overheating the grains.
• One issue you might encounter when dehydrating your rice is that, if you leave the rice to sit too long in the oven, it might begin to burn. This is easily avoidable if you make sure to keep an eye on your rice and to keep the oven set to as low a temperature as it can manage.
Nutritional Facts
For the health-conscious out there, here are the nutritional details for ¼ cup of rice flour:
Calories: 169
Total Fat: 0.3 grams
Saturated Fat: 0.1 grams
Cholesterol: 0 milligrams
Sodium: 2 milligrams
Total Carbohydrates: 37 grams
Dietary Fiber: 0.6 grams
Sugars: 0.1 grams
Protein: 3.3 gram
Potassium: 53 milligrams
FAQs
Most of the time, rice flour is made from regular white rice, rather than brown rice, primarily due to the fact that it is easier to dehydrate it and grind it into a powder.
While you could try and substitute the white rice for brown rice in this recipe, you would probably find that the outer brown layer of the brown rice would either burn or become basically impossible to blend properly, making it difficult to actually end up with properly blended rice flour.
This recipe requires you to dehydrate your rice completely, all without burning or cooking your rice at all. This means that you need to keep your oven at a consistently low temperature to ensure that it doesn’t fluctuate and accidentally burn your rice.
Not every oven can maintain this even, low temperature, however. A good solution for those with inconsistent ovens is to prop the door of your oven open while it dehydrates at whatever the lowest temp it comfortably reaches. This allows the rice to be more slowly and evenly dehydrated, ensuring that it doesn’t burn.
Most recipes involving rice will ask you to wash your rice thoroughly and completely before using it in any kind of recipe.
However, you wash rice to remove any residual rice starch from the exterior of the rice grains, and when making rice flour, it is exactly these little bits of rice starch that we are looking for! Plus, washing rice will lead to it taking a lot longer to dehydrate fully.
Only wash your rice if you know that your rice is particularly dirty or didn’t come cleaned from the manufacturer.
How to Make Rice Flour (White) at Home
Instead of buying rice flour for those niche time you need it, why not learn how to make it yourself?
Ingredients
1 cup of white rice
Instructions
Step 1 – Weigh out your rice, and pour it out in a single layer on a baking sheet.
Step 2 – Dehydrate the rice grains in a low oven set to 150 Fahrenheit, or as low as your oven can go
Optionally, if you have a dehydrator:
Step 3 – Arrange your rice grains on a rack in your dehydrator, and set it to “grains and pulses.”
Step 4 – Dry your rice until it is completely dry to the touch, with no residual moisture remaining.
Step 5 – Transfer your dried rice grains to a blender, and then blend on low speed, moving up to medium speed, until everything has broken down into a powder.
Step 6 – Store your rice flour in a lidded container in a cupboard for up to 2 months.
Notes
Makes 4 servings.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
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