How Long Can You Safely Leave Rice In A Rice Cooker?

Rice goes with pretty much everything. Making a giant pot of rice in your rice cooker makes it easy to enjoy, for example, fresh sushi and stuffed peppers. While it can be tempting to let steaming rice sit on the warm setting in the rice cooker indefinitely, there's a limit to how long you can leave it out on the counter.

Generally, you can leave rice in the rice cooker using the "keep warm" setting for up to 12 hours as long as your rice cooker can maintain a constant temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If your rice cooker has an "extended keep warm" setting, you may be able to keep your rice in the rice cooker for up to 24 hours. Don't push it past this point or you could develop a condition colloquially known as fried rice syndrome, a dangerous form of food poisoning that can develop from eating leftover rice that hasn't been stored properly.

When it's time to store your rice, follow food safety rules. Once you turn off the "keep warm" function on the rice cooker — or once it's been out for 12 hours — get it into the fridge. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends you put any leftover food, including rice, in the fridge within two hours after cooking or after it's removed from its heat source. If you have a large amount of leftover rice, place it into several shallow containers so it cools quicker.

While you can certainly put leftover rice in the fridge to enjoy later, there are plenty of ways to make good use of the rice on your countertop during the 12 hours you have it available. Rice isn't just for lunch and dinner — it can also work for breakfast. Try frying up some cooked rice with bacon and top it with an egg for a breakfast dish that offers a great balance of carbs, protein, and fat. You can also chop up whatever veggies you have on hand, scramble some eggs, and add some hot sauce to create a spicy, totally customizable breakfast fried rice dish.

Believe it or not, rice also works well as a dessert. Rice pudding is a simple go-to (a tres leches-style version is also a super-sweet treat); all you need is some milk and a few other ingredients you likely already have in your kitchen. You can also use leftover rice to make a great chocolate mousse; add a bit of cinnamon to it to create the perfect Mexican-style dessert that can finish off a meal of burritos, enchiladas, or red beans and rice. Just like rice in a rice cooker, the same food safety rules apply, so promptly place any leftover rice pudding, rice mousse, and other rice-based dishes into the fridge within two hours.