Incredibly Easy Oven Baked Rice: From 1 to 1,000 People

Imagine this … you are faced with having to feed dinner to more than six people (don’t @ me—they live with you of course! Or are two non-vulnerable/familial visitors, because ISO).

You know that rice is the CHEAPEST way to fill people up. And you can add in that slow-cooked beef stew bubbling in your slow cooker, that curry you have whipped up using a spice paste or that burrito chicken thing that your mum always makes. 

But you just can’t fit rice for more than six people in your rice cooker. Tragedy! 

Never fear, this is the perfect, easy solution, after which you may just donate your rice cooker to St Vinnie’s. 

Oven Baked Rice 

Method 

1. Preheat your oven to 180C.
2. Boil your kettle ensuring that it has the right amount of water in it.
3. Place your uncooked rice into a baking dish at least 5 cm deep. A lasagne or heavy Pyrex baking dish is ideal.
4. Pour boiling water over the top. 
5. Top with a knob of butter. 
6. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. 
7. Fluff with fork and serve.

The rules: 

• A full uncooked portion or serving of rice is 50g per person. This is the allocation for an average person. 
• Never cook more than 2kg of rice in a single dish. This is enough for 50 people. It will cook unevenly and be bulky to use/serve if you cover over this amount. 
• Never let your water/stock be deeper than 4cm. If this happens once again your rice will cook unevenly and you have a potential boiling water hazard. When you choose your baking dish, go with something like a lasagne pan (about 5cm high, and as long as you need it).
• To work out how much rice you should be cooking, grab a calculator and do some maths with me. You need to follow these calculations: 
  • Amount of cooked rice needed = the number of people eating x 50g uncooked rice.
  • Amount of water or stock needed = the number of people eating x 75ml water or stock.
  • Amount of butter needed = number of people eating x 1g butter.
• You can substitute the water for stock if you want more tasty rice.
• I like my rice soft! This means this recipe is 1 part rice to 1.5 part liquid ratio. If you prefer harder rice you can go with 63ml of water to every 50g of rice (1 part rice to 1.25 part liquid ratio).

What are your cheap and easy mass catering tricks?

Happy baking!