Apparently rice can be dangerous if cooked and frozen, then re-heated. There’s a bacterium that can be found in rice. I’ve never met it but here’s a quote from www.nhs.uk:
Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. When the rice is cooked, the spores can survive. If the rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores can grow into bacteria.
The website doesn’t tell us what the chances are of buying rice containing this bacterium and speaking from experience I have been cooking and freezing rice in portions for years with no ill effects. I’m not saying there is no risk, I’m saying calculate it and make a decision based on evidence.
The main thing is to chill the rice quickly after cooking it. Freeze it in portions – 200g of cooked rice is the size of portion my family looks for. I usually cook it by the bucket load and shovel 600g into each freezer bag for three of us. You may have slightly smaller appetites than us. In our family we are pretty enthusiastic consumers of food.
Having ready cooked rice in the freezer saves a lot of time on a busy evening when kids need to be taken to activities and husbands have to go to meetings – or the pub. Defrost it in the microwave. Bung the bag straight onto the turn table and cook for 2 minutes on full power. You may worry about the chemicals coming from the bag. I don’t, and look, I’m here to tell the tale.
There are a number of quick recipes using pre-cooked rice. Watch this space and they will appear.