Rice: Once cooked can you freeze it then reheat it after?

The answer is yes but you need to be careful.

Rice has a spore forming bacteria called Bacillus Cereus. The best way to understand this is to think of the spores as being bacteria with hard shells, so when you cook the rice the bacteria is killed but the spores remain as the “hard shell” protects it. This cooked rice is safe to eat as the bacteria level is safe. If kept hot – above 63’C no problems.

The problems begin when you start to cool the rice down as the rice cools the spores lose the “hard shell” and so the bacteria protected by the shell can start to mutiply, and as the conditions are warm they will mutiply fast. If cooling down takes too long this can produce dangerous levels of bacteria & spores. When stored in fridge or freezer this will be dormant but on heating up again become active and multiply even more so once properly reheated there are too many spores present that cause food poisoning. (this is the ill effects of the toxin that the spore produce)

So the golden rules are

1.only reheat rice once

2. if you cook your rice using the method that you rinse under cold water as soon as cooked and then refresh with boiling water then you cannot reheat

3.cool down the rice as soon as you can and by quickest means – plain rice you can rinse in cold water. Pilau etc put a thin layer into a shallow container so the maximum surface area allows fast cool down

4.get into fridge or freezer as quick as possible and don’t store too long.

5. reheat thoroughly

I do freeze pilau rice often and it reheats beautifully – in fact better than freshly cooked – I freeze in plastic “take away” containers and micro straight from the freezer in the container just giving it a shake every couple of minutes.

Indian restuarants rice has been reheated once when you are served so if you have a carry out (take away) don’t be tempted to reheated any left over.

Advice quoted from Yahoo Answers