---
title: "How rice is cooked in Japan: washing, soaking, resting and the rice cooker"
description: "Japanese rice is washed, soaked, cooked until the water is gone and rested under the lid. What each step does to the grain, and how the kamado gave way to the rice cooker."
url: https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
language: en
published: 2026-11-11
category: "Food and culture › Rice and rice dishes"
tags: ["RiceDishes"]
author: "Oginoya Editorial Team"
publisher: "Oginoya Co., Ltd."
translations:
  zh-TW: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-tw/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
  ko: https://kama-meshi.com/ko/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
  zh-CN: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-cn/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
  zh-HK: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-hk/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
  th: https://kama-meshi.com/th/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
  de: https://kama-meshi.com/de/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
  fr: https://kama-meshi.com/fr/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
  es: https://kama-meshi.com/es/articles/how-rice-is-cooked
---

# How rice is cooked in Japan: washing, soaking, resting and the rice cooker

![White rice cooked in a glazed earthenware pot, seen from close up](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/rice-cooked-in-donabe-2024.C0m1J-ea_Z2ckt9v.webp)

Rice in Japan is washed, soaked in water for at least 30 minutes, heated in a measured amount of water until no water is left, and rested under the lid for about 10 minutes. Every step serves one purpose: getting water and heat to the center of each grain so that its starch can gelatinize. Since 1955 an automatic rice cooker has been able to manage the heat by itself.

## Cooked until the water is gone

The everyday Japanese method is called *takiboshi*. All the water the rice needs goes into the pot before heating, and none is left over at the end. Raw rice is about 15 percent water, and cooked rice is 60 to 65 percent.

In the Edo period (1603–1868) a second method, *yutori*, was also in use. The rice goes into boiling water, the cooking liquid is poured off when the rice is nearly done, and the rice is finished by steaming. Yutori is the usual method in Southeast Asia.

## Washing

Milled rice carries a little bran on its surface, and washing removes it. Milling now leaves very little bran, and the method advised today is to stir the rice quickly in plenty of water and change the water three or four times.

Rice absorbs water while it is being washed, and rice washed slowly ends up smelling of bran. The washing water is not heated. Hot water sets the enzyme amylase to work turning starch into sugar, and the sugar dissolves and is poured away with the washing water.

## Water and soaking

The standard amount of water is 1.2 times the volume of the rice, or 1.5 times its weight. The cup that comes with a rice cooker holds one *gō*, 180 milliliters, which is about 150 grams of rice, and the inner pot is marked with a water line for each number of gō.

Starch can gelatinize and soften only where the grain has taken in enough water. If rice is heated without enough soaking, the starch in the outer layer gelatinizes first and keeps water and heat from reaching the center, and the cooked grain has a hard core. Rice absorbs water quickly for the first 30 minutes and is nearly saturated after about two hours. The guideline is at least 30 minutes, and 60 if possible. Absorption also varies with the [variety of rice](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/japanese-rice-varieties).

## Four stages in the pot

| Stage | Time | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Rising temperature | about 10 minutes | The pot climbs to about 100°C. The rice absorbs more water, and at about 60°C its starch begins to gelatinize. |
| Boiling | about 5 minutes | The water boils hard, and its convection evens out the temperature in the pot. |
| Steam-cooking | 10 to 15 minutes | Almost no liquid is left. The heat is turned low so that the pot stays at 100°C and the rice does not scorch. |
| Resting | about 10 minutes | The heat is off. Water clinging to the grains is absorbed into them, and the moisture in the rice evens out. |

Gelatinization is what happens to starch heated in water: it swells and turns to paste. Gelatinizing a grain of rice all the way to the center takes about 20 minutes at 98°C or higher, which is the boiling and steam-cooking stages together.

Resting is called *murashi*, and the lid stays on throughout. When the rest is over, the rice is loosened promptly, turned up from the bottom of the pot so that excess steam escapes. Gelatinized starch left to stand gradually loses its stickiness; the keep-warm function of a rice cooker holds the rice at about 70°C to slow that change.

## Kamado and hagama

A *kamado* is a stove built of earth, stone or brick, with a fire inside and a pot set on top. The rice pot made for the kamado is the *hagama*. It has a round bottom and a flange around its middle that rests on the rim of the stove. Its lid is often thick, heavy wood, so that the lid stays in place when the pot boils up.

![A round clay stove with a flanged pot set into its top under a thick wooden lid, and firewood stacked beside the stove](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/kamado-hagama-2016.C8RWlbQp_1PQdAa.webp "A hagama under its wooden lid on a kamado, 2016.")

The hagama came into use in the early modern period, which in Japan runs from the late 16th century to 1868. Until the Second World War, many regions cooked rice in a *nabe*, an open cooking pot, hung over the *irori*, the open hearth. Rice cooked with barley, or stretched with vegetables and tubers, was made by the yutori method, and a nabe was convenient for that. Rice became the daily food of the whole nation only after the war, and for takiboshi cooking the hagama with its thick, heavy lid suited best.

## The rice cooker of 1955

A gas stove for rice pots went on sale in 1902, and an electric heater for cooking rice in 1921. In 1955 Toshiba put on sale the ER-4, Japan's first automatic electric rice cooker. When the water in the pot is gone, the temperature at the bottom of the pot rises, a thermostat senses the rise, and the current is cut.

Production of electric rice cookers was 10,000 units a month in 1955 and passed 500,000 a month in 1979. Four years after the ER-4 went on sale, about half of all households in Japan had an automatic electric rice cooker. An electric rice cooker that also keeps the rice warm went on sale in 1972.

Many recent rice cookers need no soaking beforehand. They hold the rice at 40 to 50°C for about 15 minutes so that it absorbs water, and the resting time is part of the program as well.

## Rice cooked with other ingredients

[Kamameshi](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/what-is-kamameshi) is one of the [Japanese rice dishes](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/japanese-rice-dishes) in which rice and other ingredients cook together: it is made in a small pot for one person and served in that pot. For Tōge no Kamameshi, the ekiben from Yokokawa Station, Oginoya mills its own Koshihikari rice and cooks it with Rishiri kombu and dashi. The cooked rice and its [nine toppings](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/nine-toppings) are then [packed at Oginoya's plants](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/how-kamameshi-is-made) into pots of Mashiko ware.

## References

- [Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, "Cooking properties of rice"](https://www.maff.go.jp/j/syouan/keikaku/soukatu/okome_summary/02/charact_eristic_01.html)
- [Rice Stable Supply Support Organization, Rice and Cooked Rice Book, "How to cook good rice" (PDF)](https://www.komenet.jp/nandemobook/documents/ip_12-13w.pdf)
- [Kotobank, "Meshi" (cooked rice)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A3%AF-141308)
- [Kotobank, "Suihanki" (rice cooker)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%82%8A%E9%A3%AF%E5%99%A8-540126)
- [Kotobank, "Hagama"](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%BE%BD%E9%87%9C-599859)
- [Kotobank, "Kamado"](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%88-466236)
- [Kotobank, "Denki-gama" (electric rice cooker)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%9B%BB%E6%B0%97%E9%87%9C-854218)
- [Kotobank, "Koka" (gelatinization)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B3%8A%E5%8C%96-498581)
- [Toshiba Lifestyle, "Product history: rice cookers"](https://www.toshiba-lifestyle.com/jp/corporate/rd/research/history/ricecooker/)
- [Oginoya online shop, "What makes Tōge no Kamameshi taste the way it does"](https://ec.oginoya.co.jp/pages/reason)

Image credits (resized for display):

- [RuinDig/Yuki Uchida / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%9C%9F%E9%8D%8B%E3%81%A7%E7%82%8A%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F%E3%81%94%E9%A3%AF---2024-03-06.jpg), [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), 2024
- [aco pbc / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kamado_(26736484990).jpg), [CC0](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en), 2016