Low Carb Half Calorie Rice

Are you looking for a way to lower your blood sugar levels without giving up your favorite grain? Look no further than this delicious, low glycemic, low carb rice! This amazing rice recipe is made from the fluffy, steamy, starchy REAL white rice you love, but is made in a special way so you only absorb half the calories.

Plus you get a full serving of vegetables, and NO ONE WILL EVEN KNOW🤫

My recipe is much lower in carbs and calories than plain white rice, and it starts with a little miracle called 🪄 half calorie rice ✨

Jump to:

• What is Half Calorie Rice?
• What Happens When You Eat Rice
• Half Calorie Rice is Backed By Research
• Why Include Cauliflower?
• Low Carb Half Calorie Rice VIDEO
• Ingredients
• Why You Need an Instant Pot
• My Favorite Instant Pot
• Step by Step Instructions
• Can You Make this with Different Types of Rice?
• How to Store Leftovers
• How to Make Smaller Batches
• More Low Carb Recipes
• Low Carb Half Calorie Rice
• FAQs
• Turn Rice Into these Easy Meals
• 💬 Comments

What is Half Calorie Rice?

So, have you heard any of the buzz about half calorie rice?

Anything that cuts half the calories from a starchy carb deserves some attention! Half calorie rice is this great concept where you can eat real rice (meaning not cauliflower rice) but it's prepared in a specific way so that your body absorbs less calories. Half the calories, in fact - which is where it gets its name.

The best part is the flavor, texture, and everything else you love about rice is just the same - but it's lower on the glycemic index, which could really help you if you're diabetic or reducing your carb intake.

What Happens When You Eat Rice

Okay everyone, it’s time for some food science!

All rice contains two kinds of starches: digestible starch, and resistant starch.

Digestive Starch

When you eat rice, the digestible starch will transform into a sugar (glucose) and quickly enter your bloodstream.  This will both raise your blood sugar levels, and give you a burst of energy.

But if you don’t need a quick burst of energy, where does that glucose go? Yup, you guessed it - a large part of it gets stored in your body as fat.

Resistant Starch is Different

Rice also contains a small amount of resistant starch, which is a type of starch that our bodies can’t absorb. So instead of hitting our bloodstream and raising our insulin levels (like digestible starch), resistant starch will just pass through our stomachs and settle in our colon, where it ferments.  

That might sound gross, but it’s not a bad thing at all - that process feeds our healthy gut bacteria, and we can never have too much of that goodness. Then it passes right on through, and we absorb very few of the calories from it.

Half Calorie Rice is Backed By Research

Researchers at the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka wanted to find out if they could convert more of the digestible starch in rice into the resistant kind. They wanted to create the lowest calorie rice possible to improve health benefits and help with weight loss. 

Good news - they did it! After testing 38 different kinds of rice, they discovered that the method that gave the best result was this:

1. Add a little coconut oil to the rice as it cooked
2. Chill the cooked rice for around 12 hours
3. Reheat that rice later to eat.

Why does coconut oil work? As the fat molecules get cooked into the rice they become an extra barrier to digestion, turning even more of those starches into the resistant kind.

Rice cooked this way had 10 times the resistant starch! That translates to as much as 60% fewer calories - hence the term “half calorie rice”.

You can read more about this study here: Rice Calories can Be Cut in Half With This Trick

And you can read about resistant starches here: What is Resistant Starch?

Why Include Cauliflower?

Now, about the "low carb" part of this recipe - I got to thinking like a researcher myself.

I thought, “What if I replaced some of the rice with riced cauliflower to get even more health benefits and cut even MORE calories?”

I was thinking about a recipe I created last year - Low Carb Mashed potatoes, where I replaced half of the potato with cauliflower chunks and pressure cooked it in an Instant Pot. It was an amazing way to cut carbs and calories, and had all the yummy flavor of mashed potato without that strong flavor of boiled cauliflower.

Eureka, my idea works! It’s everything that we love about fluffy, satisfying white rice but with far fewer calories. And it has this bonus mildly sweet and fragrant note from the coconut oil that is so good - you’re just gonna have to make some and see what I mean!

Low Carb Half Calorie Rice VIDEO

Would you rather watch than read? You can see how I make this healthy version of rice in this video. Plus you can see a silly animation about a digestive system 🙂

Ingredients

You only need 3 simple ingredients to make this delicious and versatile food:

• long grain white rice
• coconut oil - use unrefined if you love that coconut aroma, and refined if you do not.
• riced cauliflower - store bought is fine, or you can make your own using a food processor.

Why You Need an Instant Pot

I make this recipe nearly every week, and when I tell people I serve it to that it’s 50% cauliflower, they can’t believe it. 

My Instant Pot method is THE secret to the excellent flavor of this recipe. Pressure cooking a starch and cauliflower together in the same pot is a great way to get rid of that cauliflower smell and keep the fluffy starchiness that we all love about rice. It’s just not the same when boiled in a pot of water on the stove.

Try my Low Carb Mashed Potatoes . I used the same technique, and it’s delicious!

This is the Instant Pot I use and love 👇

My Favorite Instant Pot

Instant Pot

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Step by Step Instructions

Step 5. After it beeps, release the pressure. Open the lid and fluff the rice with a big spoon or paddle.

Can You Make this with Different Types of Rice?

While we haven’t tried this technique with every variety of rice, we have tried it with several kinds of rice that fall into 2 categories: 

• white rice (with a short cooking time) 
•  whole grain rice (requires a soak before cooking). 

Each category of rice needs to be treated a little differently to be turned into low carb half calorie rice.

How to Use White Rice

Cook just as written in the recipe card with no changes. Here are the types of rice we have tried that can all be cooked this way.

Rice Type	Description	Flavor & Texture	Can it be made Low Carb Half Calorie?
Long grain white rice	The standard rice (in America)	fluffy grains	yes
Converted rice	This rice has been parboiled to hold its shape better when cooked.	Has a pleasant chewiness, grains stay separated when cooked	yes
Jasmine or Basmati rice	Longer and thinner, has a fragrance like popcorn	fluffy and delicate	yes
Calrose rice/short grain rice	Short or medium grain, often used for sushi	Creamy and soft	yes

How to Use Whole Grain or Brown Rice

Whole grain rice: This kind of rice needs a soak before cooking in the Instant Pot, but don’t worry, it’s easy! It’s similar to how you prepare dry beans before cooking, like I describe in my Instant Pot Bean with Bacon Soup post.

1. Put the brown or wild rice in a saucepan and cover with about an inch of water.
2. Bring to a boil, and cover with a lid.
3. Remove from heat and let sit with the lid on for 30 minutes.
4. Discard the water, and proceed with the recipe as written for the standard white rice.

Rice Type	Description	Flavor & Texture	Can it be made low carb half calorie?
Long grain brown rice	The standard brown rice (in America)	Nutty flavor, similar to converted rice in texture	yes
short brain brown rice	The whole grain version of Calrose rice	A little more creamy like Calrose rice, nutty flavor	yes
wild rice blend	Mine contained brown rice, red rice, and black rice

How to Store Leftovers

This recipe makes a LOT of rice, if you use the amounts as written in the recipe card. That has never been a problem for our family, because rice is so versatile.

It's the perfect meal prep food! Use it for stir fries, power bowls, and fried rice. Replace the noodles in Beef Stroganoff with this rice, and add it to stuffed bell peppers. Whatever you can use regular cooked rice for, this should work out beautifully.

This rice keeps well in the fridge for 3-4 days. Store the leftover rice in a container with a tight fitting lid. After that the cauliflower starts to go bad, so if you need to keep it longer than that, freeze it and just reheat it when you need it.

It does freeze really well, and reheats easily in the microwave. I like to freeze mine in a gallon sized freezer bag, spread out as flat as I can get it. You can store it more easily in your freezer that way, and it thaws out more quickly, too - just break it up into chunks and add them to a microwave-safe container for reheating.

How to Make Smaller Batches

I realize not everyone needs 8 cups of cooked rice 😄

Here's a handy chart so you can quickly see how to make smaller batches of this rice.

Makes:	Rice	riced cauliflower	coconut oil	water
8 cups	4 cups	4 cups	3 Tbsp.	5 cups
6 cups	3 cups	3 cups	2 Tbsp.	4 cups
4 cups	2 cups	2 cups	1 Tbsp.	3 cups
2 cups	1 cup	1 cup	½ Tbsp.	1 ½ cups

More Low Carb Recipes

If a low carb diet is your thing (like it is mine), check out the recipes on my Low Carb page.

We all love a good sugary treat now and then, but if you need a break and want to cut carbs and calories - here’s a collection of our favorite sugar free recipes: Delicious Easy Recipes for Sugar Free Meals.

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FAQs

Turn Rice Into these Easy Meals